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19233 b— 20 m 



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THE GLORY of the GARDEN 

AND OTHER ODES, 
SONNETS and BALLADS 

IN SEQUENCE. 



■kr 



With a Note on the Relations of the Horatian 
Ode to the Tuscan Sonnet. 






r$ By WILLIAM VINCENT BYARS. 



"Alles Vergaengliche 
1st nur ein Gleichniss ; 
Das Unzulaengliche^ 
Hier wird's EreiawfSs^T "Q D A PTT^ 
Das UnbeschrrfHiche V D Ivri r\ L^ 
Hier ist es JKthan; v "^ "* 

Das Ewig-w/eibliche - •****■ — •- - 

Zieht uns pinan ! " 

JUN 2 1896 * 






*> te 



4^ 






To All Good Women and All Who Love Them ! 



i 



Wvp Glopy of t^e Ga^deo- 



^HpHE light of stars and suns, a wild flower's scent ; 

* The night's dim mystery of unending space ; 
The first faint flush of morn's most transient grace, 
The last blush on the clouds when day has spent 
Its lavish wealth of sunset — these were blent 
To make the beauty for the soul and face 
Of the first woman, born in that fair place 
Of paradise, wherefrom so soon she went, 
Outcast and banned. But still, O Mother, we 
Of your soul's beauty and your sin are fain ! 
Though knowledge comes not but at cost of pain, 
Yet conquering death through pain each soul shall be 
By love made beautiful and strong and free ; 
Nor shall the poorest life be lived in vain ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



HELEN. 

'THE glow of sunlight on the morning sea ; 

The play of shadows on the woodland grass 
The gleam of clouds across the moon that pass ; 
The breath of flowers upon the springtime lea — 
These bring thy memory, Helen, back to me 
And all who seek (is it in vain, alas ! ) 
The gold of sunset from the skies to amass 
And buy the knowledge of life's mystery. 

Thy magic spell of beauty doth pervade 
The earth, the sky, the sea's untrodden ways. 
From age to age throughout all change of days, 
Enduring and undying, ne'er to fade, 
Thy spirit lives in all that heaven has made 
And souls of all men still thy beauty sways. 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



WHITE QUEEN BLANCHE. 
An Ode. 

\ \ 7" HAT avails the rare scent of a rose in the sun ; 
" * Of a lily that blooms for an hour and is gone ? 
Fair sirs, with your science, you put them to scorn ; 
But will ye make me the loom where the lily was spun ? 
Where its thread was blent when God said : ' ' Well done ! 
Will ye mix me the red of the rose at mora 
With perfume that hath lifted a heart forlorn 
To the throne of heaven's Highest and Holiest One ? 

That white Queen Blanche who was fair for an hour 
Is naught now but the scent of a delicate fame ; 
But slight not her beauty, my masters, nor shame 
The sheen and perfume of the morning flower 
When its bloom is a witness of high heaven's power 
And its scent gives glory to God's great name ! 



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STUDIES IN VERSE. 



PANDORA. 

"PHE spirit world is open ! Rise and gaze 

On fragrant morning meadows, wet with dew ! 
Be still and listen, for all things anew 
Speak with a thousand tongues to tell heaven's ways 
Of love and light ! Beneath the sun's first rays, 
The sweet, small flowers that prayed and hoped and grew 
Through all the night, proclaim in scent and hue 
A gospel that endures throughout all days. 

When first Pandora came on earth she brought 
Spirits of beauty, light and truth and grace 
To cheer what else had been a cheerless place ! 
They are hope's messengers whose work is wrought 
By all fair things but most by the pure thought 
That glows in beauty on a woman's face. 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



WITCH LILITH. 

^PRUST not Witch Lilith for her golden hair ; 

The ivory of her throat or her rose hue, 
For she of old twined round the tree that grew 
Central in paradise. With lies most fair, 
She works her spell of woe on all who dare 
The magic of her eye's most potent blue ! 
If you but kiss her mouth, her tongue anew 
Shall hiss its serpent curse. Ah, then beware 
Her deadly beauty ! But for her no joy 
Could end in pain ; no poisons dread and fell, 
Would lurk in flowers that lure but to destroy ; 
Music could have no discords, love could never cloy, 
Nor could an earth where seraph souls might dwell 
Be foul with venom of her serpent hell ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



MARY OF THE MANGER. 

'TpHIS little world swings through unending space, 

A speck of darkness in the luminous night 
Which ever and anon flames forth in light 
Of radiant spheres, full of heaven's joy and grace ; 
And far beyond all these is that void place 
Where lost souls grope in awful, blind affright, 
Through blackest silence in heaven's pitying sight, 
Scorning the light and turning from God's face ! 

These are the manger's mysteries whose worth 
Makes that of motherhood ! Each new-born soul 
Has in the endless skies its final goal 
Of life that shall endure when stars and earth 
And suns and centuries no longer roll 
Throughout the sphered eternities of birth ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



DELILAH. 

A SPELL of death lurks in Delilah's eyes 
**■ And the red-golden meshes of her hair 
Are woven to make for all men's souls a snare — 
A witch's snare of life's most lovely lies. 
Her lips with guile of laughter or low sighs, 
Woo them whose idle footsteps pass her lair 
To enter in and breathe the enchanted air 
Which maddens fools and makes as fools the wise. 

When one is captive to her, he shall grind 

A grist of woe by day and dolorous night. 

Shorn of his strength, deprived of heaven's glad light, 

Scorned, spat upon, in prison-mills confined, 

He lives as one accursed beneath the blight 

Of the foul spell that made him weak and blind. 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



CIRCE. 

' I V HERE is a goddess, Circe, whose red wine 
Sparkles in beakers in a king's high hall, 
Where like a queen she stands to welcome all 
Who come, storm-tossed and weary of the brine. 
Most fair she stands and with her smile divine, 
She charms the wayworn wretch to be her thrall ; 
But he who drinks her wine shall find it gall 
Nor shall his soul find rest among her swine. 

If thou hast eaten moly and dost bear 
A sword whose steel is proof against her spell, 
Then fear her not. She has no might to quell 
Him whom long pain has taught to do and dare 
Whate'er heaven wills. But watch and be thou ware 
When first thy parched lips taste her potions fell ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



EURYDICE. 

rA EAR dream of youth, bright lost Eurydice, 
*-^ Seen still in sunlight gleaming on the mere, 
The soul that learns of love to cast out fear, 
Shall grow with beauty and with truth of thee 
Strong in truth's strength and in its beauty free, 
Communing with all spirits of that sphere 
Where love and hope and faith and truth endear, 
Binding all hearts with bonds the soul's eyes see ! 

But ah, Eurydice, lost love, thy grace 

Evanishes with clouds that hide the sun ; 

For sea and mere grow gray when day is gone, 

And as we turn to look upon thy face, 

It fades away into that awful place, 

Of dim, vast, shadowy twilight, stern and dun ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



PSYCHE. 

/^\F all fair truths of heaven old fables tell 
^- > ^ The surest is that story of a soul ; 
A woman's soul that broke from fear's control, 
And sought lost hope beyond the gates of hell, 
Brave with a love no cowardice could quell 
Nor terrors of the gloom turn from its goal ; 
And still while time's uncounted ages roll, 
She follows hope, the captive of love's spell ! 

And it is well ; for she who follows hope, 
Though Love's feet lead her into darkest night, 
Shall surely learn through love her way to grope 
To sweeter day, to purer, fairer light 
Wherein her soul shall see with clearer sight 
Eternal things beyond time's mete and scope ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



PENELOPE. 

A LOVE there is that burns a sacred fire ; 

Too pure to wane for change of day or night, 
It lightens home with calm, celestial light, 
Making the hearth an altar where desire 
Consumes as incense to a holier god and higher 
Than the blind love of youth ! In Time's despite, 
That hallowed flame shines clearer and more bright 
When passion fails and all its ardors tire ! 

One whom long years of struggle had made wise, 
To proffered gifts of immortality 
Preferred his home and gray Penelope ! 
Did he not well ? And shall not all our eyes 
Strain hard as his toward the home that lies 
In some fair land beyond the vast, dim sea ? 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



THE SYBIL. 

/^UR souls are little and our lives are mean ; 

^" > ^ We creep and swarm as ants who for a day, 

Strive here and there along some dusty way 

Until the sunset ! But to souls serene 

Of Vala and of Sybil heavens unseen 

And vanished centuries in long array 

Reveal their truths, their secret thoughts betray, 

Until all mysteries that lie between 

The two eternities are theirs. If you have known 

Such deep, prophetic voices, if a tone 

Of power to call to light the darkest years 

Has sounded through the night upon your ears, 

Happy are you though you should stand alone, 

Bearing men's slights, their coldness and their sneers ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



THE VALA. 

\ A 7ITH soul illumined by the boreal light 

That flashes radiant round the Northern pole, 
She saw the crashing centuries as they roll 
In thunderous music through the dim, vast night. 
She saw swift-winged Eternities whose flight 
Shames Time to stillness, for their goal 
Is the completeness of the immanent Whole — 
The everlasting Mind which gives sure sight 
To eyes like hers ! Things past and things to be, 
Life, Death, Hell, Heaven, Earth, Sky and boundless Sea 
To her swift questions gave their sure replies ! 
Beyond Time's night she saw new worlds arise, 
Always enduring ! And with gladdening eyes, 
She saw all souls from Fate's sad law set free ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



LUCRETIA. 

' I ''HE blood that stained the chaste Lucretia's breast ; 

That mantles now upon a maiden's face 
At thought of shame, has in it fullest grace 
To make an unclean world at last as blessed 
And pure as highest heaven. The poet's quest, 
The prophet's yearning hope for some fair place, 
Home of a higher and more holy race, 
Though ever still to fiends and fools a jest, 
She seals as real with witness of the blood 
Which redly flowed upon her breast of snow, 
That by such token we may surely know 
The sacred worth of perfect womanhood — 
Such holy worth as theirs of old who stood 
On Calvary's mournful summit, weeping low ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



FRANCESCA. 

"\ A J HAT doth love profit now that thou art blown, 

Francesca, down the roaring winds of hell, 
A joyless ghost of sins outworn, whose spell, 
Once sweet as life, brings now but bitter moan, 
For memory of dead joys, aforetime known • 
In lusty spring of life when it seems well 
To put away all thought of darkness fell 
That reigns where endless death usurps love's throne ! 

If as thou sayst (as one who weeps and says) 
There is in earth and hell no grief like this, 
When hopeless Misery thinks on happier days, 
Hast thou done well to tread forbidden ways, 
Giving fair heaven for one brief moment's bliss 
And thine own soul for one hot, shameful kiss ? 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



BEATRICE. 

A STREAMING glory of heaven's holiest light 

Falls on her brow, and round her gold-bright hair 
Truth's halo shines with beams divinely fair 
For all whose eyes receive her gift of sight. 
Her beauty's glorious sheen gleams through the night 
At the pit's mouth to lighten them who dare 
The unknown darkness and the night's despair. 
Braving hell's hosts alone for love of right ! 

She is that lady who for love of thee 
With seraph-souls on high doth sue for grace. 
Kneeling hard by the throne, she makes her plea, 
Praying that thou mayest come to that fair place, 
Which waits the brave whose eyes at last shall see 
The unsullied splendor of Truth's flaming face ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



PERDITA. 

\ AT HERE the full moon shines on the river's breast 

' ^ In celestial splendor of white, pure light, 
She lies as asleep in the blue sky's sight 
With a face as calm as a child at rest ; 
Though her name once fair be now but a jest ' 
Where the tongues of revel make foul the night, 
She drifts with her brow in a glory as bright 
As gleams round the haloed heads of the blest ! 

Is she lost, shut out from the heavens of love, 
Where the pure in heart on their harps of gold 
Make soft music with meanings manifold ? 
When shame brings death, is there rescue above? 
Was her last cry potent, a prayer to move 
The stern law that at last on sin lays hold ? 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



MARY OF SINS. 

T^ROM the wayside's dust, from reek and from slime 

God maketh a man, a maid or a flower, 
To endure a year, a day or an hour, 
Or to outlast death and all worlds and time ! 
As from a singer's soul is born a rhyme 
Of the glad sun and the sky and the shower, 
So by the spirit of God and his power 
Was born in the fervent Judean clime, 
That fair Mary of Sins from whom were cast 
Seven fiends of the Pit by the Master's word ; 
Seven sins they were of the gray world's old past, 
Of that ancient night where life coldly stirred, 
When heaven's fiat lux ! all chaos heard 
And God's lightnings flashed through the blackness vast ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 23 



MARY OF SORROWS. 

\ TOT in Time's stretch nor out beyond the years 
^ In the vast void where Time has ceased to be, 
Is there a deeper, holier mystery 
Than God's deep secret of the bitter tears 
Sad mothers still must shed while to his ears 
Comes from the cross the everlasting cry : 
" Eloi, eloi lama sabachthani ! " 
Echoing far out to his remotest spheres ! 

Mother of sorrows, Mary of the Cross, 
Of Calvary's secrets still thy sons are fain ! 
No tear of thine was ever shed in vain ; 
For without tears, love's finest gold were dross, 
Since every living soul has birth through pain 
And new life comes not but by old life's loss ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



HELOISE. 

T S not all true love sad, O Heloise ! 
A victim garlanded for sacrifice 
Who knows not how she may in any wise 
Escape the knife that with charmed eye she sees 
When with slow hand the careful high-priest frees 
Its bright blade from the sheath ? So were your eyes 
Set on your fate when stifling back love's sighs, 
You drained life's draught to its most bitter leas ! 

But though the nun's black veil hides your sad face 

To cover all love's sin, through it doth shine 

Into time's night a radiance most divine, 

A light of heavenly love so full of grace, 

It fills and brightens all the void, drear space 

Where Death his captive ages doth confine ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



NAOMI AND RUTH. 

QUBTLE of soul Naomi was, for she in sooth 
^ Knew that sweet magic by whose spell a maid, 
Though she herself be shamefaced and afraid 
In trembling coyness of her unworn youth, 
Conquers men's souls as then in very truth 
Boaz was won when ere the night could fade, 
He measured barley and at parting laid 
A kinsman's gift into the arms of Ruth. 

In some forgotten life or in some dream, 

I saw the waving fields of yellow wheat 

Where Ruth, the Gleaner, stood with brown, bare feet ; 

And he who saw how white her beauty's gleam 

Shone through her tattered dress, might surely deem 

A royal robe had been for her most meet ! 



26 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



LAURA. 

* I V 1IE poet learns from all things. He is taught 

By music of clear waters as they flow 
Through sunlit glades in June when whispering low, 
They strive to tell him their most tuneful thought 
Of the bright seas they seek. All things are fraught 
For him with love and light. He learns to know- 
Heaven's secret ways from grace of flowers that grow 
In wood and field. The farthest star had naught 
Of mystery for him if he knew a rose 
And the neglected grass that rankly grows 
On children's graves. Yet never is he wise 
Until a woman's loving soul he knows 
And from her beauty learns to read the skies, 
As Petrarch learned them from his Laura's eyes. 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



CECILIA AND ROSSETTI. 

I E was but newly dead and had no might 
*■ * To make such songs as heaven's sweet poets make 
And set to music ! As a child awake, 
Lying alone and sleepless in the night, 
Stretches its futile hands towards the light, 
He cried aloud that soon his heart must break 
Unless some spirit deigned for love's dear sake 
To give his voice its song, his wings their flight ! 

Then at his calling fair Cecilia came, 

The sweetest singer in the heavenly choir ! 

Drawn downward to him by his strong desire, 

She took his hand, told him his heavenly name, 

And as blent strains from one harmonious lyre, 

They mounted upward in a singing flame ! * 

* "And the souls mounting up to God 
Went by her like thin flames ! " 

Rossetti. 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



SAPPHO. 

'IpHE west wind sighs for Sappho for she lies 

A Where cold waves lap her breast and her loose hair 
Floats golden with the tide ! Serenely fair 
Is her white face, and her deep, azure eyes 
Are closed in dreamless sleep ! Never in any wise 
Will she weep more. Never again love's care, 
Its pain, its grief, its shame will bring despair 
To her still breast or wring from her the cries 
She set to music of that harp whose strain 
First gave to woman's heart a voice and tune ! 
Suns rise and set ; the pitying crescent moon 
Above the summer seas doth wax and wane, 
But Sappho wakes not, having of death this boon, 
Never to laugh or sigh or sing again ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 29 



KATISHA. 

TN darkness of the night stood one unknown, 
Lifting a torch to shine for all men's eyes, 
With might of a great truth made brave and wise, 
He cried aloud : " Lo God is God alone ! 
There is no other God upon heaven's throne 
Than God the Gracious, who with pitying eyes, 
Sees all your pain and hears the wailing cries 
You send in vain to your dumb lies of stone ! " 

So he cried out ; but they who loved their wrong 

Saluted him with louder answering cry : 

"Fool and blasphemer, thou shalt surely die ! " 

But by Katisha's faith and trust made strong, 

He braved alone the fury of the throng 

And scorched with torch of flame their fierce-faced lie ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



MARY WASHINGTON. 

XT O man is great whose mother makes him small ; 

* ^ No man is small whose mother makes him great 
This is a two-fold cord of triple fate ; 
Though men be weak or strong, it binds them all ; 
The greatest and the least it holds in thrall ; 
In good or evil hap, in love or hate, 
As banned outlaws or highest chiefs of state, 
Men are their mother's sons, whate'er befall ! 

So Washington, his mother's son, she made 
A gentleman, firm, simple, brave and true, 
Great for all time because he dared to do 
The simple duty conscience on him laid ; 
And as new ages give him honors new, 
Hers too shall be a fame that will not fade ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 31 



NANCY HANKS. 

\ A /"HEN womanhood upon this woeful earth 
Bears all its shame, its poverty, its pain, 
And meekly ignorant, dares not complain, 
But toils in silence from a lowly birth 
To a forgotten grave — brave in life's dearth 
Of love and joy and counting still for gain 
All tears love gives though they be given in vain, 
It has in such estate heaven's highest worth. 

From such a soul of speechless motherhood 
Was Lincoln's patience and his sadness born ; 
And when he sealed his life-work with his blood, 
She who had lived and died, despised, forlorn, 
Bearing men's taunts, or foolish, silent scorn, 
A radiant spirit, at his bedside, waiting, stood ! 



32 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



DULCINEA. 

' I V HE world were surely worse if Quixote's eyes 

Had been as keen as ours ; for blest is he 
Whose vision is too nobly weak to see 
The flaws in things beloved. Love is more wise 
Than unbelief that, ever-doubting, tries 
All things before it trusts nor dares to be 
Wrong for the right's sake, foolish to be free 
From supreme folly in unfaith that lies ! 

Thrice blest is he who loves some shining star, 
Who lives his life by its celestial rule ; 
Happy though reckoned by all men a fool ; 
Thrice happy, though it shines in skies afar 
Beyond his sight, while in some shallow pool, 
He catches but its faint, reflected light ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



THE LADIES OF OLD TIME. 

A \J HO does not love the ladies of old time? 

* Their heads erect, their sweet and stately grace, 
The mild, seraphic pride illumining each face 
Are music to the eyes, such fleet recurrent rhyme 
As lute-players make when every string keeps chime 
To a pure thought of some bright garden space 
Where smell of lilies perfumes all the place 
Till memory thrills with odors of heaven's clime. 

But they are gone like dew on last year's flowers 
That grew in crannies of the crumbling walls 
And mouldering stones of those proud, lonely halls 
Where once they reigned ! Their lands, their towers, 
And greater things than these the years make ours 
Whose mothers were their unconsiderec 

tlBRA^p 
*JUN 2 1896 1 



34 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



THE RAGPICKERS. 

T SAW three women, haggard, grim and gray, 
* Sorting the vilest refuse of the street ; 
Searching for life as if life still were sweet, 
Despite the anguish of its bitterest day ; 
And I was fain to turn my face away 
For pain and pity. At that sight unmeet, 
I could have wept that youth should be so fleet 
Had not my obdurate heart been moved to pray. 

"O God," I said, "make beautiful again 

In some fair world, the lives of such as these 

Who here on earth in ugliness and pain 

Thus work thy will while we who live at ease 

Know not what dearth they bear. If thou dost please, 

O God most high, let no soul's life be vain ! " 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



CATHERINE OF DOUGLAS. 

r^ OD loves the brave. The hero and the saint 
^-* Have wrought his will because they dared to be 
True to themselves and from the falsehood free 
That fawns and lies and truckles till the taint 
Of cowardice its ashen hue doth paint 
On the fair rose of courage. O friends, trust me ! 
The highest heaven of heavens they shall not see 
Whose knees are feeble and whose hearts are faint ! 

Love truth, love right and let all those who list 
Be great by might of lies and power of gold ! 
If, at the midnight hour, your lips are kissed 
By seraph-flames of truth and light, be bold 
To stand at mid-day as once stood old 
Catherine of Douglas with her broken wrist ! 



36 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



CLEOPATRA. 

A SINGLE blood-drop on her bosom's snow 
**■ Proclaims the flaw at which her life found vent- 
Whence naked, trembling and ashamed, there went 
A soul of many names and centuries of woe ! 
Helen she was and Sappho ! None may know 
Her transmutations or the ages spent 
In pain of passion ere the spirit pent 
In Cleopatra's breast ebbed wan and slow 
Beneath the asp's fell fang. Beware the snake ! 
For this fair lotus-bloom, the perfumed dower 
Of passionate beauty, works a spell of power, 
With fleet, Nilotic visions that forsake 
Dreamers who trust them, leaving them to wake 
Stung by the asp that lurks below the flower ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



CLOTHO. 

"pHE wild crab's odorous wealth of snowy bloom, 
Is it not hope of everlasting life ? 
And is not hope a flowering memory, rife 
With mysteries of past birth ? Time's never ceasing loom 
Still weaves day's brightest light into night's gloom 
For resurrection robes. White lilies grow 
On graves in triumph over death below, 
And Hope's most hallowed altar is the tomb. 

The wreath of wild-crab flowers in Clotho's hair, 
Is it not sweet to smell ? And will not she 
Come at your call as still she comes to me 
When after night and winter, Spring makes fair 
The world with fragrant memories of the rare, 
Sweet, vanished days we nevermore shall see ? 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



ATROPOS. 

^T^HE forests are a flame of gold and red ; 

* The light breeze plays with slowly falling leaves 
It is the time of Atropos and garnered sheaves ; 
Of ripened deeds and of the long-drawn thread 
That waits the shears. For Hope at last has wed 
Fruition, and thereby at last conceives 
Fate, whereat the Goddess smiles or grieves 
When to its end the careworn year has sped ! 

The flower enfolds the fruit, the fruit, the seed 
Of the new life and never-ending birth, 
That gives to meanest things new truth, sure worth 
And nobler grace. When Atropos gives heed, 
Fair flowers may spring from e'en the vilest weed 
That now deforms waste places of the earth ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



NEMESIS. 

A LL things with everlasting life are fraught ; 
"**■ Nothing in earth or sky can cease or fail ; 
Whether men laugh or sigh or bless or rail, 
No man escapes himself. Each act, each thought, 
Into his soul's eternity is wrought ; 
So shall each suffer all his own loved crime 
While Time endures and then beyond all Time, 
Until Eternity has come to naught ! 

This is the changeless law ! Let all beware 
Nemesis and the serpent twining in her hair. 
She is the Unforgetting ! When she sees 
The despot writhe in hell, she will not spare ! 
For all who suffer wrong in silence — these 
Have friends in her and the Eumenides ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



PROSERPINE. 

/ *TpHE sun still shines though we may think it set ; 

* The night is but a shadow on our eyes ; 
The hosts of heaven possess the midday skies, 
All radiant still, howe'er we may forget 
The splendor of their beauty. Never yet 
Has light failed or has life in any wise 
Ceased for the lapse of years and changing guise 
Of mutable time. Then let no vain regret 
Mar the dear memory of the blessed dead ! 
For they beyond the sunset and the West 
By the sweet Queen of Sleep and Dreams are led 
To fairer lives wherein no pain, no dread 
Mars the deep calm of that eternal quest 
Through which each finds at last what he loves best ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



HAGAR. 

I EANING her weary head upon her hand, 
■ L/ She sat beneath the palm tree's scanty shade, 
Weeping and desolate ! Rejected and betrayed, 
Driven out into the desert's waste of sand, 
She faints beneath the heat of that strange land, 
With never hope to cheer or love to aid 
Her failing feet ! So ever weeps the maid 
Who for an unmeet love is scorned and banned. 

But as she wept forlorn, the hard, bright sky 
Thundered with mighty voice Fate's first, great law 
Whereby the curse of her sad motherhood 
Shall be on all who drive her forth to die ! 
In wonder then she raised her eyes and saw 
That there hardby, heaven's highest angel stood ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



RACHEL. 

T) Y ITaran's well, seven nodding palm trees grow. 

At eve their green against heaven's deepening blue 
Is sweet to tired eyes as falling dew 
After the noon-day heat. Calmly and slow 
The tinkling sheep-bell sounds, and soon the low, 
Soft music of the shepherd's shawm will woo 
The desert maid to love more warmly true 
Than outworn hearts of later years can know. 

True love is goodly though akin to pain, 
Sweeter than all things, even than death or sleep ; 
And he who truly loves will count it gain, 
Though for love's sake, his eyes may not refrain 
From overflow. As when among her sheep, 
Jacob kissed Rachel and was fain to weep ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



DIANA, THE HUNTRESS. 

A LL things are rife with unfulfilled desire. 
"**■ What seeks Diana on the hills at night 
When all the air gleams rhythmically bright 
With thrill of moonbeams, rare as if a choir 
Sang some sweet tune to love's harmonious lyre ? 
What seek the blooming orchards, clothed in white, 
When May has come and all the world is dight 
In beauty and unfolding flowers aspire 
In odorous prayer for fruit ? What mystery lies 
Below the glittering surface of the sea 
At night when all its mighty floods arise, 
Shackled by moonbeams, struggling to be free ? 
Who knows the answer, let him say for me 
What seeks the huntress of the seas and skies. 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA. 

'TpHROUGH all the world, heaven's angels walk obscure 

* With radiance hidden from our darkened eyes 
By forms of humblest clay whose mean disguise 
May veil celestial light more rare and pure 
Than we with purblind sight could dare endure. 
Lo, past your door the way of all these lies ! 
Most blest are you when one the latchet tries 
And enters in ! For your reward is sure 
If you but give a single, cooling draught, 
Such as from Jacob's well the woman drew 
When from her cup the Galilean quaffed ! 
For ever still he comes on earth anew — 
(That peasant God at whom a mad world laughed !) 
And he may come, perchance this day, to you ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 45 



THE FIVE WISE VIRGINS. 

' I k O-DAY, perchance, some Thought may come to you, 

Fraught with the glory radiant round heaven's throne 
Or else a still small voice of music and a tone 
Of love caught from clear harps of those, the chosen few, 
The very chief of cherubim, who view 
The face of God. If such an angel came unknown, 
In humble guise of earth, would your soul own 
His kinship ? Would you count his message true ? 

Fair were the Five Wise Virgins and most fair 
Their white robes shone with their five lamps alight ; 
Fragrant the bridal chaplets in their hair 
And sweet their choral songs. None might compare 
With them in virgin grace — so clear and bright, 
Their lamps and faces shone that wedding night. 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



MARY OF BETHANY. 

/CONSIDER the lilies ! Are they not more wise 
^* Because they live all cumberless and free, 
Giving the sky their worship, even as she 
Who with deep prayer for knowledge in her eyes 
Sat at Christ's feet and drank in his replies, 
With soul athirst for that great mystery 
Of everlasting life ? So shall she be 
Greater than all who dare not trust the skies. 

I learned it from the hedge-rose in the spring 
That fear is foolish and a wasteful thing. 
Is not the wild phlox by the stream more fair 
Because it breathes its odors on the air, 
Taking no thought for what next year may bring, 
With soul unvext by aught of fear or care ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



MARTHA. 

A LAS, for all who lead blind, burdened lives, 
Weary at morn with work of yesterday, 
With lame feet struggling on a stony way 
From birth to grave ! Bound in the gyves 
Of circumstances, awed by the whip that drives 
Doubt's slaves, the thralls of care grow gray 
Even in green youth because they say heaven nay, 
And strive forever as the coward strives ! 

What shall they win who lose the better part, 
Yet serve the worse with careful, constant heart, 
As Martha served, though truth she could not see ? 
Humble though their reward may be and low, 
Shall they not rest at last and surely know 
All mysteries that skies and stars can show ? 



48 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



THE VALKYRIES. 

'"pH ROUGH endless depths of sky freed spirits float ! 

Through miles on miles of never-ceasing blue 
Do mounting souls their upward way pursue, 
Until this world is but a shining mote ! 
Above earth's highest peaks of snow they float ; 
Above green, flowering isles most fair to view, 
In sunlit, smiling seas, they pause anew, 
Aloof from life, from all its strife remote ! 

For o'er the world as o'er a battle-plain, 
Float the Valkyries, choosers of the slain ; 
Each silver cloud, each luminous fleece of gray, 
Is a swan-maid who bears a soul away 
To fair Valhalla where all loss is gain ; 
Where strife and darkness end in life and day ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 49 



TITANIA. 

\ A /HERE spirits wander through a starlit land, 

* Titania reigns, a queen of elves and dreams ; 

Her robes are of the full moon's brightest beams 
Woven with the sumac's scarlet. In her hand 
She holds fair Memory's wonder-working wand, 
Wrought of the sunset's lingering, golden gleams, 
And jewelled bright with moonlit spray from streams 
Whose cascades shine and sing at her command. 

Wise are all mortals loved of her, for they 

Can hear the silver chime when blue bells ring 

And know the tune with which each growing thing 

In wood and field keeps time to coming day 

And the first strains of sunrise, when the gray 

Of skies empearled grows bright and glad larks sing ! 



5 o STUDIES IN VERSE. 



THE LORELEY. 

'"TPALL, white cliffs gleam, all radiant with red gold 

*■ Till the bent stream burns bright with wedded hues 
Of sky and foliage, blent with spell that woos 
The soul to dreams. The year grows sad and old ; 
The fire about its heart will soon grow cold, 
And soon its tears for all its glad days spent, 
Will turn to gray the glowing colors, lent 
By earth and sky whose hues these depths enfold ! 

Under the surface of the mirrored skies 

In the deep stream, a land of wonder lies ; 

And all its mysteries the Loreley knows ! 

She calls the fisher-boy and joyfully he goes 

Down to dark depths from which he ne'er shall rise ; 

And on, forever on, the sparkling current flows ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



VIVIA PERPETUA. 

iK A LAS, poor fool ! " the pitying praetor said, 
"**■ " If you will die, your blood is not on me ! 
Cry but 'All hail to Caesar ! ' and go free ; 
Pour but one cup of wine, bow your proud head, 
And you shall live ! I tell you, the pale dead 
Stray through black night aghast, as you shall be 
Unless to Caesar's power you bend the knee 
And save your soul from hell's marsh, vast and dread ! " 

" Nay, my good lord, it is not hard to die ! 

Bid your slaves strike and make an end of pain ! " 

So Vivia said ! And so she died for truth 

That she might live in an unfading youth 

With mighty angels of the upper sky 

Who teach earth's slaves and saints that death is gain ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



THE WITCH OF ENDOR. 

QHE drew aside the curtain of the deep 

And gazed into the void whose twilight veil 
Hides worlds destroyed and all weak lives that fail- 
(The uncertain souls who choose to die and sleep !) 
With straining ears she heard vague spirits peep 
And mutter low as the forbidden wail 
Of some fell fiend, self-tortured, dared assail 
The silence all dead souls are fain to keep ! 

Lo, when the prophet came from that dim place, 
With hoary hair, dishevelled, and fixed gaze 
A ghost unlaid, reluctant to her call, 
She shrieked aloud ! For gory, stern and tall, 
The lost and ruined soul of unslain Saul 
Came too and stood all grim before her face ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 53 



QUEEN MAB. 

■* I ^O make Queen Mab the faint scent of a rose 
A Was blent with flame and the white, floating reek 
The sun shines through above some crystal creek 
Whose stream to sparkling seas of Elfland flows. 
In that strange land a tree of wonder grows 
And he who kisses thrice Mab's lips and cheek 
Shall eat its fruit and learn the truth to speak 
And know deep lore no other mortal knows ! 

Who kisses thrice Mab's lips shall learn to sing 
Day's meaning and the secrets of the night ! 
Her lover he shall be and fairies bright 
Will hover round him on moon-silvered wing ! 
And he shall hear the smitten gold chords ring 
When stars at evening tune their harps of light ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



ISIS. 

1NSEEN, unknown, unworshipped, Isis stands 
^ Beside Life's loom, behind the future's veil ; 
With head bowed low and face divinely pale, 
She plies the shuttle with unceasing hands, 
Weaving into her web the three-fold strands 
Spun by Time's bondmaid hours. For lives that fail 
Or souls that thrive, her labor shall avail 
In every age throughout all days and lands ! 

She weaves fair garments of fine silken flame 

And clothes therewith earth's ransomed slaves, set free 

From bonds of blind despair and ancient shame ! 

Three-fold the thread, three-fold the web shall be, 

And Isis three-fold. Death is here her name, 

But in the skies they call her Liberty ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 55 



THE WIDOW AND HER MITE. 

Q HE gave more than they all for with her mite, 
^ She gave her soul that heaven might make it one 
With strength and splendor of the midday sun 
And with calm glory of blue skies at night, 
When far beyond the scope of straining sight, 
In other heavens of beauty, seen by none, 
Star-beams and sun-rays are together spun 
To make truth's halo of celestial light ! 

She who gives all, shall have all she loves best ! 
Into her soul the gracious heavens shall pour 
Treasures of light from their unmeasured store ; 
The Pleiades seven shall shine to make her blest 
And their sweet influences at her behest 
Shall wait as handmaids round about her door ! 



56 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



THE SIRENS. 

I KNOW a green isle where blue, shining seas 

Gleam bright as they break in foam on white sands ! 
I dream of clear lakes with moon-flooded strands ; 
With bold, jutting highlands and flowering trees ; 
My soul is beguiled by soft, humming bees ; 
By smell of sweet scents from magical lands ; 
By music of sirens whose outstretched hands 
Call and enthrall me ! Yea these (more than these !) 
Call me away from the roar of the street ! 
With songs enthralling, enchantingly sweet, 
They call me away to islands of green 
In seas by mortals unsailed and unseen ! 
From the madding rush and roar of the street, 
They call me away to islands of green ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



CECILIA IN HEAVEN. 

A ROUND Cecilia in white, shining stoles, 

Sweet singers kneel to learn heaven's poesy ! 
Through all blest years of their eternity, 
Crowned with high knowledge in fair aureoles 
Of golden light, these once sad, burdened souls 
Learn gladness now ! From life's most central tree, 
They pluck sweet fruit, and by the crystal sea, 
Strange music lulls them as the clear tide rolls 
From the far shores of time ! Lo, these are they 
Of every land and nation on the earth, 
Whom tribulation raised to nobler worth ! 
They sigh no more, for God has wiped away 
Their tears ! Their night has passed ! In this new day, 
They rise always from birth to higher birth ! 



58 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



THAIS. 

A T"*H ROUGH war's wild clamor, through bloodshed and flame, 

* The victor's way is ! Who wins the world's throne, 
The love of Thais shall be his alone ; 
The white arms of Thais (the conqueror's fame, 
The laurel undying, a glorious name ! ) 
The bright charms of Thais all are his own ! 
By might he prevaileth ! Let stricken slaves groan ! 
For he that faileth — to him is the shame ! 

Where shields are ringing and sharp darts are hurled ; 
Where arrows sing shrill as they cleave the air, 
The hero's way is who would win the fair ! 
Who would woo bright Thais when flags are furled, 
Must smite earth's weaklings, nor pity nor spare 
For cries or groans till he masters the world ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



VENUS OF THE HORSELBERG. 

I N a dream-born world on a gleaming throne 

Of tourmaline and chrysolite most fair, 
Queen Venus sits and combs her golden hair, 
Unseen of all men save of them alone 
She chooses in fresh youth to be her own. 
For them she weaves a magic three-fold snare, 
Spun from desire, delight and fell despair, 
To draw them to her hell ! All bright things fl.'wn 
Of all dead worlds obey her voice and spell. 
A queen of sated joys and unfulfilled delight, 
She reigns supreme in an enchanted night 
Where all vain visions of false beauty dwell, 
Floating forever in pale, golden light 
That glows around her in her shadowy hell ! 



6o STUDIES IN VERSE. 



THE MERMAIDS AND THE LOTOS EATER. 

F) ALE, fair-haired and still, a mariner lies 
In a crystal cave in blue depths below 
The pearl-strewn sea-reefs where red corals grow ! 
Mermaidens at morn with wondering eyes 
Gaze on his sad beauty and give him sighs. 
Forever and ever the tides shall flow, 
But he shall never awaken or know 
The glad, bright day and the light of the skies ! 

He ate the sweet lotos : he dreamed bright dreams 

Of a higher life and a golden quest 

For islands of beauty beyond the west ! 

He dreams no longer ! Most blessed he seems 

As he lies at last in fulness of rest 

Where pale, azure light through blue crystal gleams ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 61 



EVANGELINE AT PRAYER. 

QWEET saint, I see you kneel with upturned face 
^ Before the altar where the light streams faint 
Through high rose-windows whose blent colors paint 
Upon your brow a glow that seems the grace 
Of that remote, unseen, long-hoped-for place 
Where all who pray and strive and do not faint, 
Shall meet at last, freed from the earthly taint 
That gives me shame as in this holy place 
I watch your prayers ! In other, higher airs, 
Evangeline, may I kneel down and learn 
The heavenly secrets I would fain make mine ; 
But now the very thought of them would burn 
My soul with fire such as waits him who dares 
Mock at your worship, blest Evangeline ! 



62 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



SARAH DRUMMOND. 



*TPHROUGH Time's blind night, the ages grope their way ! 

With halting feet, slow-moving, still they crawl 
Forever on, unseen, unknown of all 
Save of high souls whose eyes can see the day 
Though it be midnight and all others say 
No sun shall rise ! No darkness shall enthrall, 
Nor shackles bind, nor fear nor fate appall, 
Nor ancient precedents in grim array 
Turn them whom heaven appoints to lead their kind 
To higher life through fuller liberty ! 
Though others see not, some there still shall be 
Whose gaze prophetic darkness will not blind ! 
As Sarah Drummond saw, they still shall see 
The soul's clear dawn, the sunrise of the mind ! 



i 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 63 



THE KING'S DAUGHTER. 

A MINSTREL loved the daughter of a king 
"** In that far land where souls are bought for hire ; 
No poet there dares sing or tune his lyre, 
For men wax fat nor suffer bards to sing, 
Lest song should stir their sluggish hearts and bring 
Such shame as bids awakened souls aspire 
And seek the heavens as mounting larks rise higher 
In fair spring skies because they dare to sing ! 

' ' Nay, nay, I cannot stay, " the minstrel said ; 
" I love no land of pampered, fawning slaves. 
Better the heaving sea's deep, sunless caves 
Where cold, dark graves hold many a freeman dead ! 
Nay, nay, at morning gray or evening red, 
Better for me the sea's free, foaming waves ! " 



64 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



EMPUSA. 



II AVE you not known Empusa? It is she 

Who bore earth's little, strutting lords — who guides 
The horse on which the haughty beggar rides. 
All they are born of her who strive to be 
Great at the cost of men of less degree ; 
For of scorched imps who suckle her shrunk sides 
She maketh tyrants and her spell abides 
On all who struggle for earth's mastery. 

He who drives slaves with whip or nod or tongue 
Is spawn of hers, and from her loins are sprung 
The slimy brood who flatter, fawn and crawl 
For place and power, that they may hold in thrall 
The helpless of the earth. She breeds them all ! 
And for their sake and hers, this song is sung ! 



i 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 65 



THE MAID OF MOY MELL. 

A Ballad. 

/ HpHOUGH Coran, the druid, may mutter his spell, 
*■ The soul of Prince Connla shall never be free ! 
From the bleak heights of Usna, he looks o'er the sea 
To the land of the West where the Shean folk dwell ; 
Ah, vain is gray Coran's black art and his spell, 
For the wierd of his own soul Prince Connla shall dree ! 
Ne'er again a spear-wielder in fight will he be, 
For he hears the soft call of the Maid of Moy Mell ! 

Far, far to the West lies the glittering plain, 
The Land of Immortals, where sorrow and pain 
Come never to them whom the Shean folk save ; 
And when their swift curragh comes over the wave, 
The voice of the druid shall be all in vain, 
For the vast, awful ocean Prince Connla will brave ! 



66 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



THE BEAN-SHEE'S GIFTS. 

O RAVE Carroll had danced with the Bean-Shee 
*-^ Who gave him greatness and glory and gold, 
And smiled as he clutched them with eager hold, 
Knowing nought of fell secrets of gramarie ! 
By her spell from moments thirty and three, 
She wrought him the years of his power and told 
Piece by piece the tale of the fairy gold 
For which he had sold her his liberty ! 

Brave Carroll awoke when the years were sped, 
In a deep, foul cave where the grim, gray light 
Made visible through the horrible night 
The ghastly phantom to whom he was wed ; 
" Lo, I " she said, " am your heart's delight ! 
We will sleep this night with the sheeted dead ! " 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 67 



THEKLA LISTENING TO PAUL. 

IT E spoke with tongue of angels, and the tone 
* * Rose clear and free as morning carols, sung 
In heavenly streets by harpers glad and young, 
When a new savior conies to earth unknown, 
To follow Christ and walk, unhelped, alone, 
That strait, rough way where every heart is wrung 
By pain of higher birth. The listeners hung 
With souls enraptured, rising to heaven's throne, 
On the strong pinions of that mighty Word. 
He told of that high love which purifies 
True hearts until the pain of sacrifice 
Raises the soul above. As Thekla heard, 
An unknown life deep in her being stirred 
And strange, new, holy tears flowed from her eyes. 



68 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



HERO'S LAST NIGHT. 

O HE listened to the wild gale hissing shrill 

Around her tower, as when lost spirits wail 
Far in dark depths profound, where shadows pale 
Are driven by power of that dread Evil Will 
Which wreaks its hate on souls it can not kill 
And the sad dead with torture doth assail ! 
So shrieked the blast, so did the storm prevail, 
When Hero looked at eve to the far hill, 
Across the foaming wave, where stripped to swim, 
By love made brave, Leander stood with gaze 
Fixed on her tower as she stretched hands to him ! 



At morn when in the sky the sun rose dim, 
They lay as all must lie whom Love betrays, 
Stark on the sands, veiled by the gray, bleak haze ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 69 



CECILIA AND AZRAEL. 

OESIDE the tree of life, Cecilia played 

*-' A tune of love upon her harp of gold ; 

A psalm which all death's mystery did enfold ; 

(It was a lullaby pale Azrael made ! ) 

It told of fields where lilies never fade 

Though children pluck all their two hands can hold ; 

Where youth and roses ne'er grow dull and old ; 

Where death is higher life and undismayed, 

Life shall receive Death's loving kiss of peace ! 

She sang in heaven. On earth it seemed a voice 

Bidding the city's poor, pale children rise 

To lands where flowers and sunshine never cease ; 

Where earth's sad weaklings shall in love rejoice 

Raised high above all pain in glad, bright skies ! 



7 o STUDIES IN VERSE. 



HELEN OF THE CUP. 

I I E thought on shame of his blind, fevered days ; 
On high and noble deeds he ne'er had done ; 
On craven stooping that he dared not shun ; 
On coward groping in dark, crooked ways, 
And on base acts whereby he got men's praise, 
Till the hot brine of tears did overrun 
His burning eyes ! Then came that gracious one, 
The Argive Helen whom a beggar's lays 
Make dear to all men ! In a golden bowl, 
She mixed a draught of wondrous, magic might, 
The sweet nepenthe which can raise the soul 
To higher things. And as he drank, his sight 
Had strength to pierce the mists of his life's night 
And view the splendors of its final goal ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



AURORA. 

r^v AY breaks ! Through soft, gray skies the new dawn thrills, 

*-^ As music thrills the heart when some loved tune 

Wakes a sad soul to joy ! Day breaks and soon 

The splendid sun will rise o'er far, blue hills 

And its glad light will glitter on bright rills 

Through all the lard. Day breaks and the pale moon 

Gleams wan for grief that night must pass so soon. 

The world awakes ! With light the dim sky fills, 

As fair Aurora comes with all her train ! 

Day breaks, Love's soul awakes and all life's pain 

Shall pass with grim, gray shadows of the night ; 

For all night's loss and fears morn shall requite ; 

And every soul that, groping sought the light, 

In this new day, its full desire shall gain ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



NOURMAHAL. 

I N Jamshyd's courts the bramble chokes the rose ; 

And Jamshyd's sword is eaten with red rust ; 
The tower of strength whereon he set his trust 
Is fallen so low that the foul ragweed grows 
On yon cap-stone of pride that dared oppose 
The noonday sky ! And this base dust 
We tread is Jamshyd's self who had such lust 
Of power and praise ! But still the Tigris flows 
Beneath blue skies ; and thou, my Nourmahal, 
Dost walk with me through this fair garden's ways, 
Beside the stream, singing the clear, sweet lays 
Through which the soul of Hafiz shall enthrall 
The souls of lovers till earth's latest days 
When men forget to sing and heaven's stars fall ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 73 



RAN, THE QUEEN OF STORMS. 

' I V HE black ship staggered and reeled in the sea, 

With cracking timbers and wild-flapping sail ; 
For lost souls of dark Nostrand rode on the gale — 
(Ah, woeful the shrieks of lost souls must be ! ) 
In the train of fierce Ran who sets them free 
When her hoar waves roar and brave men grow pale 
To hear the banned ghosts who gibber and wail 
When the dread Storm-Queen sways the raging sea ! 

The black ship sank but Jarl Hakon stood fast 
While the flaming lightning flashed in his face ! 
Ran's ghosts shrieked loud but he kept his place 
At the helm of the dragon-ship to the last ; 
And hurling his glove at the blackness vast, 
He died a true son of his viking race ! 



74 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



FATA MORGANA. 

OLEST is the fay, Morgana, who can cheat 

With dreams of cool, sweet springs and meadows fair, 
Our desert days of thirst and parched despair ! 
Fierce glowed the blaze of dread Sahara's heat ; 
The deadly noon's red rays accurst, did beat 
Full on the wanderer's head with hateful glare ; 
Yet hope led still and gave him heart to bear 
The pain of cruel ways that scorched his feet ! 

But when at length he sank and cried for rest, 
She raised before his set and glazing eyes 
Bright dreams of peace ! and, mirrored in the skies, 
She showed the dear-loved home of his long quest, 
Where now beside cool streams at last he lies 
With all fair, noble souls his soul loved best ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



CECILIA AND ISRAFEL. 

/"^ ECILIA'S soul is filled with holy peace, 
^- > But Israfel sings not except in pain 
Of love that counts as nothing all its gain, 
Striving forever, having no might to cease 
From prayers for light, and finding no release 
From labor, day or night ! And not in vain 
He seeks, for they that seek shall gain 
From pain of struggle heaven's most potent peace ! 
They who find peace shall play their music well 
On lute or harp, on psaltery or flute ! 
Most blest is peace and blest are they who dwell 
Where songs of hope and love are never mute ; 
Where sweet Cecilia sings to that strange lute 
Whose strings are the heart-strings of Israfel ! 



76 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



ALCESTI3. 

I HOLD in hand two rounded, golden seed ; 

* A nettle one will make and one a rose ! 

This is Fate's mystery and no man knows 

Science so high that he for me can read 

The riddle of these little, golden seed. 

From one, Hate's foul and stinging blind-weed grows ; 

From one true Love's most fragrant, luminous rose. 

So shall each soul inherit its own deed ! 

This is Fate's law, but ever blest is she, 
Like true Alcestis, who can conquer Fate 
By might of love that ransoms and sets free 
Earth's creeping slaves from shackling deeds of hate, 
And that blind chance of dim, ancestral date, 
Which breaks Love's law and makes Fate's mystery ! 






THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN, 77 



ARACHNE. 

"I A TORK now, for night will come and day fades fast ! 
* * Work well, for work is life and hope and peace ! 
They who work well find strength that shall not cease 
For time or change, but time it shall outlast, 
Gaining each day from struggle of its past, 
New hope, new sight and the eternal peace 
They gain who gain at last their sure release 
From power of lies that are hell's fiends outcast ! 

Look how Arachne casts her thin, gray thread 

From here to there, from now to yesterday, 

That she may win to-morrow ! Do thou spin 

As she ! So daily shall thy work be sped 

By sorrow as by joy, and thy sure way 

Shall lead thee where thy soul its hope shall win ! 



7 8 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



VENUS LUCIFERENS. 

\ A TITH dazzled eyes, worn by the glare of day, 

* " He turned for peace to calm, cool depths of night, 
Where the true evening star rose on his sight, 
Shining from far, with tender healing ray, 
Through fair, blue skies whose vapors, silvery gray, 
Floated in slender wreaths of misty light. 
So once again he learned to see aright 
And that sweet star taught his sick soul to pray. 

Who learns to pray, the stars will make him wise 
With night's sweet influence and that mystery deep 
Whose secret all heaven's shining stars do keep ! 
Sweet are gray, silvery mists to tired eyes 
And sweet is night that brings the worn soul sleep, 
But sweeter still is light from night's deep skies ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 7 9 



ALCESTIS BROUGHT BACK. 

A LLwe have done and suffered, seen and thought 
•**• Death shall interpret. This brief life of earth 
Must make itself a new and perfect birth, 
And be again in warp and woof rewrought. 
So do we make our fate ! For death is fraught 
With lasting meaning and eternal worth, 
Or else with poverty and such sad dearth 
Of that high knowledge endless life has taught, 
As makes men beggars on heaven's streets of gold. 
This is a secret true Alcestis told, 
Returning from the land of shadows gray : — 
A moment's life eternity doth hold ; 
For ere to-morrow can its debt repay, 
To-day must borrow all from yesterday ! 



8o STUDIES IN VERSE. 



MORGANA IN AVALON. 

T I E came at last, worn, faint and stricken sore 

To Avalon where fragrant heartsease grows 
Wild through the meadows ; where at twilight's close, 
Fair maids sing choral songs full of the lore 
Wise spirits of the moon knew, long before 
The elves taught men to sing. There no wind blows 
O'er plains of asphodel where sparkling flows 
Youth's fount that turns all locks with age grown hoar 
Again to the fair hues of golden spring. 

Morgana there will teach the weak and dumb 
All those high songs they had no art to sing 
On earth where speech is a poor, crippled thing. 
There life's completeness equals hope's full sum 
And there all failing souls at last shall come ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 81 



THE NAIAD. 

FTAR in deep woods, a sparkling stream flows clear 
* And pure as starlit heavens, or as the eyes 
Of some true-hearted maid not yet grown wise 
Through pain of love that mars life's hope with fear. 
It is most sweet, when June makes glad the year 
With smell of opening flowers and rose-hued skies, 
To sit at sunset where bright dragon-flies 
Flash on bejewelled wing now there, now here, 
Above the stream ! For they are each a thought 
Of music, born of that low evening song 
The Naiad sings as her soul flows along 
The sweet-toned, stream whose voice so oft has brought 
Heaven's peace and hope to him who here has sought 
Rest for a soul grown weary of earth's wrong ! 



82 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



GODIVA. 

* I V HERE is an awful and most holy mystery 

Of love and life, of death and change and birth ; 
Of law so potent that it sways the earth ; 
Of Fate that rules the waters of the sea ; 
That maketh hell and heaven by its decree ; 
That raiseth lowest things to highest worth, 
Giving for darkened emptiness and dearth 
Of primal night, that glorious life to be 
When all things are made perfect ! 'Tis the pain 
Of truth and beauty, stripped for sacrifice 
By love more strong than shame ! And he whose eyes 
That sacred mystery would dare profane, 
Deeming such love an idle thing and vain, 
Shall wander blind and shameful till he dies ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



A RUNE OF THE NORNS. 

\ A 7HO drinks from Mimir's well shall know the sky, 

* " The earth and all the secrets of the sea, 
And hell. Below the roots of that great tree, 
The world-ash Iggdrasill, he shall descry 
What others think not of ! Nor from his eye 
Shall Odin's lore be hid ? (Why tempt ye me ? 
Witoth er'nn etha what ? ) But he shall be 
Half blinded by the draught lest he should die ! 

Know ye not yet what means the Vala's lay ? 

Why laughed the Norns, those sisters wierd and gray, 

When Odin pawned the better of his eyes 

And quaffed the cup that made him sad and wise ? 

Have you not learned it yet, to-day or yesterday, 

This rune that to your questioning replies ? 



84 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



THE BEGGAR MAID. 

Q HE was most fair because her soul was pure ! 

^ Most good to view is that white saintly rose 

Whose untouched heart at morn but faintly glows 

With blush of dew-wet red. Its spell is sure. 

Its charm of potent magic shall endure 

While men love beauty — while the rare perfume 

Of fair-souled chastity in virgin bloom 

Has strength and power above art's cunning lure ! 

Her soul was like a flower. Her face that day 
Shone with the morning grace whereby far hills 
Are made most fair when dawn's calm star's last ray 
Gives place to sunrise and the glad light thrills 
To the world's heart. Thus she with downcast eyes, 
Stood all abashed before Cophetuay ! 






THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 85 



OPHELIA. 

QOME souls are like the still blue of the sky 
^ In a clear pool at morn, fulfilled and blent 
With hues of tender green from willows, bent 
To view that mirrored heaven and mayhap sigh 
For their own earthliness. Though far and high 
The deep empyrean lies, its full intent 
Of peace and calm to the fair pool is lent 
While undisturbed and still its waters lie ! 

So was Ophelia's soul most pure and fair 
Before sad love wrought madness. So the stone 
By the rude hand of thoughtless wanton thrown, 
Degrades the pool to earth. The sky no more is there, 
All heaven's bright hues have faded into air, 
And peace and beauty have together flown. 



86 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



MARY AT THE TOMB. 

A A /HEN Mary came before the night was sped — 

(Who seeketh truth must seek it in the night ! ) 
She found the sepulchre deserted quite ; 
But lingering still until the sky grew red 
With sunrise, at the feet and at the head 
Where Christ had lain, she saw two souls of light 
Whose faces shone intolerably bright 
With meaning of Truth's rising from the dead ! 

And so she learned where buried hope had lain 
That ere truth triumphs, it must surely die ! 
Each new-born falsehood has its three days' reign 
And for three days new truth must buried lie ; 
Men ne'er receive it till they crucify, 
But ever is their crucifixion vain ! 






THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 87 



JOAN OF ARC. 

O TRAIT is the gate and rough the way ! Take heed 

^ If you have ailing feet and feeble soul, 

Before you try the path to truth's high goal ! 

For to cross, stake or scaffold it may lead, 

And if your heart should fail you at your need, 

Then heaven were mocked. Shall they who dare enroll 

As freedom's vansmen, grudge or spare the dole 

Of martyr blood that fructifies truth's seed ? 

Lo, if you shrink and quake, heaven gives you shame 

To see earth's weakest bear the stake and flame, 

Daring oppression's worst to make man free ! 

So by truth's might, the right shall ever be 

More strong than strength and so in freedom's name 

Shall weakness wrest from wrong the victory ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



THE DRYAD OF BANDUSIA. 

\ A J HERE sweet Bandusia's limpid waters glide 

* The poet dreamed beneath the fair-spread oak, 

Hearing strange secrets as the dryad spoke, 
Whispering the fountain nymph close at her side, 
As they twain listened to the sparkling tide, 
Prattling its summer song. No rude sound broke 
His dream of beauty as those fairy folk 
Taught him the art his highest art to hide. 

As the oak's rustle and the fount's low tune 
Told him that strength must have a soul of grace 
In every work Time's touch shall not erase, 
The sunlit fields were glistening with high noon. 
And all the woods were sweet with breath of June, 
But sweeter, brighter shone the dryad's face. 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



PHILOMELA. 

A SOUL of tuneful sweetness doth prevail 
*** Throughout heaven's dream-filled depths of starlit blue ! 
This I know well because long since I knew 
The song with which the South's gray nightingale 
Salutes the dawn when gleaming stars grow pale, 
As day's first light glows stronger and the hue 
Of morn on rose-bright skies calls forth anew 
The choral song of life on hill and dale ! 

Who knows the art by which the mocking bird 

Pours all her subtle soul upon the night, 

In tune with Jasmine odors and the light 

Of the still moon ? Surely her breast is stirred 

By memories of spirit choir-chants heard 

In skies where every melody is sung aright ! 



90 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



SYRINX. 

A A USIC is memory of a deathless past 

In those high spheres where every soul is fair ! 
Who knows and loves not song, let him beware 
Lest he should wholly die and be outcast 
Into some joyless place, dim, vague and vast, 
With those who have no part, nor lot nor share 
In heaven's clear harp-tones. For they clasp but air, 
Thinking to grasp their dearest hope at last ! 

So Pan for his lost hope was fain to die, 
Gaining for Syrinx naught but her last sigh — 
That low sweet tune slow-breathing South winds sing 
Where tropic marsh-grass and white lilies spring 
Among lone reeds and bright flamingoes wing 
Their scarlet course against the deep blue sky ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



DAPHNE. 

A A OST fair was Daphne ! Ever fair to view 
■*• A Is virgin Fame to him whose heart of fire 
Flames forth in music from Apollo's lyre 
Whose strings of flashing gold shall thrill anew 
When tuned aright, as they were wont to do 
Of old, when with the singer's high desire, 
The burning god of light drew nigh and nigher 
To her who spurned but that he might pursue ! 

Most fair is Daphne still, and still she turns 
To a cold wreath of laurel for the brow 
Of him whose youthful hope most hotly burns 
When most she mocks him ! For if I or thou 
With fleet foot follow as she laughs and spurns, 
So as of old, she still will cheat us now ! 



STUDIES /AT VERSE. 



CASSANDRA. 

'IpHE fields are sweet with breath of May ; the skies 

*■ Flecked with the dawn's pale gold, blush through their blue, 
As though Morn told a tale of love to woo 
The Day, a maiden coy who turns her eyes 
Of azure downward, half afraid, and sighs 
Lest her pure joy be known ! Shall not we too 
Have morning faith to know that heaven is true, 
And that sure faith alone can make us wise ! 

What though the night will come ! It is yet morn 

And the day's light sufficeth for the day ! 

Turn from Cassandra ! Trust her lord, the sun, 

Who all her vain foreboding puts to scorn 

And from his face of glory rends away 

The veil of mist by night's dim shadows spun ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



THE DAUGHTER OF HERODIAS. 

* I ""HE smitten cymbals with their tinkling rhyme. 
Chimed with the music of her glancing feet ; 
Whirling and swirling, fleeter and more fleet, 
Her white limbs flashed in rhythmic, pulsing time, 
As she the daughter of that sun-bright clime, 
With her fair body, bared their gaze to meet, 
Danced for the Baptist's head before the seat 
Where Herod sat enthroned. So through all time, 
Shall wanton beauty dance the truth to death ; 
So through all years, shall they who truth deride, 
Cry out at last in vain as Herod cried, 
Consumed in his own flame, scorched by the breath 
Of fiery lusts whereat hell shuddereth, 
Hearing them shriek by whom truth was defied ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 

'T^HIS is for praise of that blest nameless fay 

1 Who gives to stricken weakness its due meed ; 
Who comes to rescue at their utmost need 
All those who faint and fail and yield the day ! 
Hers is the future. Heed what she doth say : 
" There is no failure. Every noble deed 
Shall wax from flower to fruit and bear the seed 
Of a fair life that ne'er shall pass away ! " 

In that calm land beneath the still lake's breast, 
She waits for all who strive with sword or song 
To free earth's weaklings from enthralling wrong. 
With beckoning hand, she calls them to her rest, 
In blest assurance that what each wrought best 
Shall live and thrive and wax forever strong ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



BATHSHEBA. 

O EWARE always of what your heart desires, 

Or you will gain it ! Even for them who stand, 
The noblest of the earth, a fair-souled band, 
Before heaven's parted gates and hear its choirs 
Of white-robed seraphs with their golden lyres, 
A path leads downward to a desolate land 
Where pale souls wander through vast wastes of sand, 
With hearts consumed by their own hidden fires ! 

Alas for Bathsheba, whose beauty drew 

From heaven a singer's soul and brought it low ! 

Her body's bloom was fair as flowers that grow 

By mountain lakes when spring makes all things new ! 

Alas for beauty's dower, and all who dare pursue 

Their heart's desire until it brings them woe ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



PENTHESILEA. 

IT EAVEN'S highest strength lies in the law of grace ! 

She may be brave who cuts away the breast 
To draw the bow, but love and truth are best, 
And naught is stronger than the smiling face 
Of beauty when pursuing blushes chase 
Joy from low-lying coverts till they rest 
On rose-red cheeks, all trembling from their quest, 
But with their quarry caught and victors in the race ! 

Though force gives law to earth ; though blood be spilt ; 

Though love with shackled hands must kneel to fear, 

Yet steel is weaker still than pity's tear, 

Shed for the sake of shamed and suffering guilt ; 

For still shall grace prevail and love endear 

Though sword-blades break and hands fail from the hilt ! 



/ 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. g 7 



CLYTIE. 

'"pHROUGH all the skies by mortal eyes unseen, 

Fair shapes of light throng always, night and day ! 
Upward and downward on their shining way, 
The vast, winged hosts of beauty, pure, serene, 
Pass and repass, the earth and sky between ! 
Giving June dawns their charm of azure gray ; 
Filling the spring with rare, faint scents of May ; 
Blending on autumn hills their gold and green ! 

The sky's best gift of grace is light — more light ! 
Can you not guess why Clytie prays for sight, 
Turning her face forever towards the sun ? 
Who can express what wonders should be done, 
Could we but see and know and feel aright 
The glories we shall know when light is won ? 



98 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



THE SPHINX. 

A MONG dread silences she broods alone ! 

Dead years of change and fate are heaped as sand 
About her feet. At her unvoiced command, 
The mysteries sublime around Life's throne 
Call out to centuries that wait unknown 
About her gates. (As is most meet, they stand 
In endless, serried ranks on either hand 
And gaze always into her face of stone ! ) 

" What of the night ? " Time's hoary warders call ; 
" Is it far spent ? Shall there be dawn and light ?" 
And cloaked in cloud, the starry watchers all 
Who keep their vigil round Life's fortress wall, 
Cry out aloud from heaven with voice of might : 
" Rejoice ! The darkness passes ! There is light ! " 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 99 



THE HESPERIDES. 

O EJOICE ! For night and fear are almost past ; 

* ^- The glow of dawn shines on the tallest trees 

In yon blest land of the Hesperides: 

Rejoice ! There shall be light— clear light at last ! 

The glad day is at hand and many a mast, 

When night is gone, shall dare the unknown seas 

To seek the fruit that gives new life, and frees 

Men's souls from night's dread ghosts and phantoms vast ! 

Rejoice ! The anchor-ropes are drawn by hands 
That will not fail for labor of the oar, 
Nor will their faces pale when Hope commands 
And steers through perilous ways, untrod and hoar, 
Of stormy seas between these forlorn lands 
And the blest future's golden, shining shore ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



MARY OF THE NATIVITY. 

T F you can learn the secret of that day 

And be in soul and heart a little child, 
All things are open to you ! Unbeguiled 
By falsehood, hoar as Time and error gray 
As the gray world itself, you shall have sway 
O'er heavenly things, and spirits, undefiled 
Of earth, on whom God's self has smiled, 
Shall teach you all the secrets of heaven's way ! 

Lo, as that morning broke, the seraphim, 
Souls that are mighty in the things they know, 
Joined hands and sang a carol, soft and low 
As the soft starlight that with morn grew dim ! 
Then as the sun rose, while they vanished slow, 
They praised the Child and gave their thanks to Him ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



MAID MARIAN. 

A PRISONER, dying in a cheerless cell, 
**■ Dreamed of Maid Marian and Sheerwood green ! 
He heard her sing : "When shaws bin sheen, 
When hawthorns bloom in spring, 'tis well, 'tis well 
To stray abroad with me and hear birds tell 
Their mates so dear at morn what love doth mean ; 
They sing full well what true, true love doth mean 
When hawthorns bloom in spring by stream and fell !" 

So sweet she sang the tall oaks bent to hear ! 
So soft and low she sang of love and spring, 
The daffodils rejoiced to hear her -sing ; 
So clear she sang, the woodlands, far and near, 
Waxed glad and rang as dream-born echoes ring, 
Till that sad cell was filled with light and cheer ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



ROSAMOND. 

"[7 AIR Rosamond was once the world's fair rose ! 
1 Where is her beauty now when worms have fed 
On cheeks whose sunny hues of damask red 
Tempted a king's false kiss ? No fair thing grows 
In wood or field but it shall fail when snows 
Are woven a shroud to cover Summer dead ! 
Alas, for springtime beauty that has fled 
To some pale, empty world no mortal knows ! 

Yet this I know full well though roses fail, 
Truth's spirit shall not fade for changing years ; 
Brief beauty passes and we give it tears ; 
False love endures no more when youth's cheeks pale, 
But beauty's soul of truth shall still prevail 
Beyond all time, throughout all skies and spheres ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 103 



PSYCHE IN HADES. 

T SAW the small, unsightly, unborn soul 
* Of a bright butterfly crawl here and there 
On a broad leaf, in fretful, blind despair 
Because it could not reach the higher goal 
For which it strove, nor pass the leaf's control. 
Alas, such grief has Psyche ere she' rises fair 
And floats in beauty through the summer air, 
In tune with roundelays blithe field-larks trcll, 
Filling the still, blue skies with choral praise ! 
Alas, for Psyche's grief — for the blind night 
Of Hades and its paths devoid of light ! 
Alas, that she must wander through dim ways 
Of the gray underworld ere she can raise 
Bright wings that bear her on her skyward flight ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



MAB ASLEEP. 

T SAW Queen Mab asleep beneath the shade 

Of a blue violet's longest, greenest leaf, 
Where by all human eyes she lay unseen 
Save mine. Far off the strong-armed reapers sang 
Their harvest song. Grave kine and mild-eyed sheep 
Drank from the stream among the rushes green 
Where water lilies lean their stately heads, 
Sleeping because their fairies are asleep. 

Beneath the rowan shade where violets grow, 

She lay asleep. Her face was like the leaf 

Of a white rose, unclosing in the light 

Of early dawn and full of the rare grace 

Of springtime mornings in that kingdom fair 

Where bright-winged Mab rules all the fairy race ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 105 



MARY AND THE MAGI. 

[ OVE is most wise and potent though it lies 
L/ A child new-born, upon its mother's breast. 
Above all stars shone its fair star that morn, 
When with the censer's smoke, rare odors rose, 
As bending low, the mighty seers who know 
All deep truths of the dawn-stars and the skies, 
Gave him their worship though forlorn he lay, 
Heaven's Truth new-born among the kine that day ! 

Still shines the star of faith in skies afar, 

And whoso will may follow as of old 

To where truth lies, all-wise on Mary's breast. 

Fair shines the star, but bleak and hot and bare, 

Are the vast sands between love's lands and these 

Wherefrom the Magian starts upon his quest. 



io6 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



ROSEMARY. 

ITTLE know they who think Rosemary dead, 
*~^ For she is dancing in bright fairy rings 
In fair Glenavon where the crocus springs — 
The yellow crocus with the white one wed — 
Among the snows ere winter days are sped ! 
The daoine-shee loved her as she loved fair things, 
And when she floats with them on radiant wings, 
Though we have lost her, let no tear be shed ! 

She loved white hollyhocks that blossomed tall 
Behind red roses by the garden wall ! 
She stretched her small hands to them on the day 
The daoine-shee came to bear her soul away ! 
Knowing their speech, she smiled to hear them call, 
Nor though she loved us, could she dare delay ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



OUR LADY OF ANGELS. 

'"T" v HOUGH hate may scoff, there is a great, white throne, 

*■ A heaven of light and glory where the sound 
Of universal harmonies profound, 
Thrills rescued souls as with an echoed tone 
Blent from blest deeds and all the high thoughts known 
In their own lives. And there, with glories crowned, 
Where Mary stands, the ransomed hosts around 
Cry " Hail ! " to her whose grace is made their own ! 

She stands amid a mighty multitude, 
The unnumbered souls for whom her Son was slain, 
They come from nameless graves in many lands, 
With robes of white and radiant wings bright-hued, 
To give her praise and thanks for all her pain, 
Holding fair palms of victory in their hands ! 



xo8 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



THE NEREID. 

\ A TITH a girl's gold hair the Nereid strings 

* * The harp she made from a lover's breast-bone ! 
Strange, holy and rare is that lyre's clear tone ; 
Strange, magical, fair are the songs she sings. 
Wild, thrilling and high her melody rings 
As in depths profound, she sits all alone, 
Under the sea on an opaline throne, 
Crowned with glittering gems the sea-snake brings 
From argosies wrecked for her sweet song's sake. 
" Come down, you weary ones, deep down to me ; " 
" Come down," she entreats you ; " Why, why will you break 
Your hearts for a dream of dim mystery ? 
Come hither, deep down, and my songs shall make 
Your sad souls gladsome and fearless and free ! " 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 109 



ILSE. 

A T the hidden door in the Ilsenstein 
"**■ The Prince smote boldly and cried out her name ! 
Three times he had smitten ere bright Use came 
To give him pebbles and cones of the pine. 
" My gifts " said Use, " shall make you divine ; 
For all these are honors and this is fame ; 
And this I call praise and a lordly name 
And these are jewels that sparkle and shine ! " 

Not once, not twice but three times must they smite 
On the Ilsenstein with a mail-clad hand 
Ere fair Use will come at their command, 
To bring them her jewels and honors bright 
That shine with a wonderful, elfin light 
To dazzle men's eyes in every land ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



BRUNHILD. 

T N the North stands a castle girt with fire 

And in it a sleeping Valkyrie lies 
With Odin's thorn-spell on her fast-closed eyes ! 
To him who has conquered the dragon dire 
And broken her slumber's magical gyre, 
She will teach three runes to make him wise 
As a man may be on earth ere he dies ; 
For she is fair Brunhild, your heart's desire ! 

Fair are the charmed banners on Brunhild's wall ; 
All golden they glow in the morn's first beams 
In that olden, magical land of dreams 
Where gleams through the mist her turrets so tall ; 
And fair the bright vision of beauty seems 
When Brunhild arises at Sigurd's call ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



QUEEN HOLDA. 

A Choral Ode. 

A LONE, unknown, she stands beside the sea 

Where round the dark rune-stone the gray gulls cry ; 
Where round that magic stone the sad waves sigh ! 
The song she sings is charmed ! Wild, wild and free, 
It rings with wondrous sound of melody ; 
It rings the world around till earth and sky 
Thrill with its magic tune ; and far and nigh, 
The air is sweet with flowers that soon shall be ! 

Bright Hoi da comes with voice of golden song ; 

Rare days of light and joy her spell shall bring ; 

She will repay with gladness of the spring 

And fragrant breath of May the winter's wrong. 

Rejoice, sad heart ! the glad air is athrong 

With flower-crowned fays who dance to hear her sing ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



CHARLOTTE CORDAY. 

A A 7ITH steadfast eye she watched the quivering light 

Flash from the bright blade of the guillotine ; 
Nor shrank from death nor from the dread, unseen, 
Stern terrors of the day beyond Death's night, 
Where waited her the Judge within whose sight 
Her hand relentless, drove the dagger keen 
To the foul heart of that base wretch and mean 
Whose lust had been her suffering country's blight ! 

Though girt in mail of power and fenced in pride, 
He needs beware whom woman counts heaven's foe. 
Be it soon or late, his soul shall surely know 
What justice means. For when heaven is defied, 
If no strong champion comes to take God's side, 
Her own weak hand shall strike fate's deadliest blow ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 113 



MADAM ROLAND. 

*"p HO UGH in thy hallowed name, O Liberty, 

* Were marshalled once the rebel hosts of hell, 
Still shall the tongues of freemen learn to tell 
Thy praise from hearts that burn with love of thee ! 
Above earth's lordliest names thy name shall be. 
Sister and nurse of Peace, does he not well, 
Who strikes a blow for thee and dares to tell 
The truth of heaven that makes men brave and free ? 

Though they who love thee die as Roland died, 
By tyrant, mob or law condemned to shame, 
Thou art most fair, O Freedom ! and thy name 
Shall wax in greatness while the stars abide 
And in the skies God's glorious will proclaim: — 
That truth shall make men free whate'er betide ! 



ii 4 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



THE CAULDRON OF CARIDWAIN. 

'HpH ROUGH spring and summer, a year and a day, 

Must boil the charmed cauldron of Caridwain 
Ere Guion, the dwarf, can be born again 
As the bard of the everlasting lay, 
Whose soul endures from forever to aye ; 
Who stood by the cross when the Christ was slain ; 
Who wrought with the builders on Shinar's plain ; 
Whose abode was the dawn-star's primal ray ! 

When the three charmed drops fell on Guion's tongue, 

Sweet, marvellous sweet, were the songs he sung; 

The wind's wild swiftness, his spirit outran 

And blent with the heavenly spirit of man ; 

To the thought eternal his freed thought sprung 

And he lived all life in his one life's span ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



THE CURSE OF CARIDWAIN. 

A THRICE-BORN soul has Talyesin, the bard, 
'**• For Caridwain has made his thoughts divine ; 
Upon his radiant brow, blest memories shine 
Of far-off skies, dim, blue and many-starred ; 
Yet this shall ever be his life's reward, 
To taste salt tears until he loves their brine, 
To give fair pearls and bear the scorn of swine 
Until his heart is but a broken shard ! 

By night and by day through all the long year, 
Must boil the charmed cauldron of Caridwain 
To make the three drops to her magic dear ; 
And never, ah never, never again 
Shall he who tastes live a man among men 
And be glad in his soul with his fellows here ! 



u6 STUDIES IN I'EKSE. 



URD. 

■\ A J HEN Bragi came where Urd's clear fountain flows 

Beneath the roots of mighty Iggdrasill, 
He felt the universal pulses thrill 
With the same thought that shapes a summer rose, 
As it has made creative light that flows 
From stars and suns to blend its strength until 
Earth's smallest flower shows the same might and skill 
The vast, blue dome of star-lit midnight shows ! 

As Bragi came, the gray, eternal Urd, 

She who hath been forever, who shall be 

When there is neither earth, nor sky nor sea, 

Rose from her seat and spoke the fatal word 

That makes the skald and sets his chained soul free ; 

And Asgard sang for joy as Bragi heard ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 117 



THE GARDEN OF IDUNA. 

TDUNA'S garden lies where blue skies smile 

■"■ Above a vale where the shy brown-thrush calls 

His mate when, hushed and still, calm evening falls. 

The glowing sun sinks low, and pile on pile 

From golden clouds, the gnomes with elfin guile, 

Build Asgard's shining towers and flaming walls, 

Where with great Odin in celestial halls, 

Blest heroes quaff their foaming mead, the while 

Bright Bragi gives them praise for glorious deeds. 

Great Odin listens and fair Baldur heeds 

The harp's high strains as Bragi gives them praise 

For all their hero-pains in earthly days ; 

But my weak soul, the sweet Iduna leads 

Along her fragrant paths and flower-grown ways ! 



n8 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



IDUNA AND THE RUNES OF BRAGI. 

O LEST is the soul blue-eyed Iduna leads 
*-^ With soft control, along her lofty ways, 
In peaceful skies where after weary days, 
All troubles cease; where no heart bleeds ; 
Where faith and hope lean not on broken reeds ; 
Where, brighter for earth's doubting and delays, 
Calm truth shines out at last in hallowed rays 
Of fairest light whereby the wanderer reads 
From Bragi's scroll all he had sought to know. 
High are the runes of Bragi and most wise 
Is the charmed song Iduna sings, when low 
The sun sinks in the west, and all the skies 
Shine with the beams on Valhall's towers that glow, 
When Asgard gleams too bright for mortal eyes ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 119 



THE FLOWERS OF IDUNA. 

O RIGHT shines the sunset on high Asgard's towers 
*-* And fair is Valhall with its myriad rooms ; 
But brighter and more fair that garden blooms 
Where through eternal summer's odorous hours 
Iduna tends with magic art her flowers — 
The strange, unearthly blossoms whose perfumes 
The light-alfs gather when the moon illumes 
That high, enchanted plaisance where all powers, 
All thoughts, all wishes of earth's purest minds 
Find a new birth in color and rare scent 
Of the strange blossoms sweet Iduna tends ! 
Most blest is he who meets her there and finds 
With her charmed flowers, his life-thought fully blent 
In that fair garth where summer never dies ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



THE APPLES OF IDUNA. 

T DUNA'S fruit is sweet and good to see ; 
*■ She has three gold-hued apples which once grew 
In her fair garden where all love is true ; 
Where every heart is pure and all souls free 
From thoughts which if they came to you and me 
Would bring us shame and bitterness and rue ! 
Ah, may no thought of shame e'er come to you 
And may you pluck fair fruit from Idun's tree ! 

The mighty gods must come, by night and day, 
To eat Iduna's fruit of ruddy gold ; 
For if they came not, they would fade away, 
Growing all sere, and worn arsd grim and old, 
Wan as wan death, gray as hoar Time is gray 
And cold at heart as sated Sin is cold ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN, 



IDUNA AND HELA. 

TRAYING at night beyond her garden's bound, 
^ Iduna met sad Hela, face to face. 

" Lo, I am death ! " said Hela, "and this grace 

1 crave of thee who art life's great queen, crowned 
To reign where joys of light do most abound : — 
Grant that all souls who lie in that drear place 

Of Nostrand, may look on thy radiant face 
And from thy lips learn the three runes profound 
Which wake the dead from love of their foul sin ! " 
With pallid brow and lips whereon no red 
Blent with that ashen hue we dread to see 
On cheeks we love, did Hela thus begin 
Pleading for them, the long- forgotten dead, 
Who chose in life, each what his death should be ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



IDUNA IN THE IRONWOOD. 

T DUN A wandered in the iron wood 

Far to the East of Midgard where sits Shame ; 
Ancient and gray, she feeds a cauldron's flame. 
Wherein fell deeds of all base womanhood 
Bubbled and seethed as there the goddess stood. 
" Who art thou ? " said Iduna. " Is thy name 
Not Death in Life, and art thou not the same 
Foul Sin who bore the hateful Fenris brood ? " 

Shame grinned and stirred her cauldron round and round. 
But answered not ! Then as Iduna turned 
To leave in haste that grim and dreadful spot, 
The foul hag laughed aloud, and at the sound, 
The cauldron's flame burned blue and hissing hot 
And Outgard shuddered to its utmost bound ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



IDUNA AND OUTGARD. 

[ EANING from Asgard's lofty wall, she saw, 
L/ Far down below, through depths of cold, blue space, 
Dead worlds of shame and radiant worlds of grace, 
Swinging in tune to a harmonious law, — 
A rune of power, most holy, without flaw, 
The heavenly song that in the highest place, 
Veiled spirits sing before the flaming face 
Of Him whose lightest thought has might to draw 
Asgard's high towers to ruin and nothingness. 
Far down in space she saw this little earth, 
With its blind pain and shame, its death and birth ; 
Its joy, its mirth, its wrongs and sore distress ! 
" All humankind, " she said, " shall Bragi bless, 
And with high songs raise men to nobler worth ! " 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



IDUNA IN VALHALL. 

\ /ALH ALL'S high Hall of Spears shone all aglow 

* With ruddy light and loudly Asgard rang 
With clamor of proud wassail and wild clang 
Of blood-stained swords which once wrought bale and woe 
To make the fame of heroes who, a-row, 
Feast now where round the walls their banners hang ! 
So once they sat a-row while hoar skalds sang 
Their deeds at Yule-tide feasts on earth below ! 

44 Skoal ! " cried Jarl Eric, as the mead he poured 
Into a bowl wrought from grim Hakon's skull ; 
44 Skoal, and drink hale to Hela, sad and pale ! 
To bright Iduna, too, skoal and drink hale ! 
Skoal, three times skoal, and let each bowl be full 
When sweet Iduna feasts at Odin's board ! " 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



IDUNA AND THE HARP OF BRAGI. 

F> RIGHT Bragi thrust aside his harp of gold, 

Wrenching away each living, flaming string ; 
" Ah, woe is me ! " he cried. " I cannot sing ; 
My soul is sad ; my heart grows sere and old ; 
My voice is cracked and thin ; my songs are cold ; 
They ring no more as they were wont to ring, 
Nor have they strength to soar on mounting wing 
As once they soared when they were true and bold ! 
Ah, sweet Iduna, canst thou give the fire 
To quicken to new life and strength again 
A weary spirit and an outworn lyre ? 
That I may sing once more the clear, high strain 
Which soothes all woe, makes lighter every pain 
And bids each wretched human heart aspire ? " 



i 2 6 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



IDUNA AND SURT. 

I COME " Iduna said. " to seek the fire 

Of Muspelheim wherein the Spirit dwells, 
Who rules all worlds, all heavens and all hells ! 
Asgard is sad, for tuneless is the lyre 
Whereto bright Bragi sang each pure desire, 
Each high and holy rune just Friga tells 
And every thought in Odin's mind that dwells 
To bless mankind and raise their weak souls higher ! " 

" Alas ! " Surt said ; " that fire thou ne'er canst see ! 

If thou couldst know the secret of this land, 

Even though a goddess, thou shouldst surely die ! 

Not Odin's self knows that high mystery ; 

Vainly with idle prayers thou troublest me ; 

Back, back ! " he cried, and shook his flaming brand ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



IDUNA AND BALDUR. 

F7R0M his high throne in Hela's shadowy land, 
Dead Baldur rose and kissed Iduna's cheek. 
Sad ghosts had joy in death to hear him speak, 
Who by the gentle breath of his command, 
Wrought flowers and beauty, in each barren land, 
And brought to earth, once dreary, cold and bleak, 
Bright summer hours, when love, no longer weak, 
Has might to conquer all the Jotun band ! 

" Fear not ! " said Baldur ; " Bragi's loss is gain ; 

He shall be strongest of all gods above. 

Never in vain sings he to human ears 

Who learns from his own grief to pity tears ; 

Who learns to spare the weak from his own pain, 

And strings anew his harp with chords of love ! " 



128 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



IDUNA AND LOKE. 

f~^ URST Loke came clothed in robes of shining white ; 

^-^ He is the vilest of the Nighthag's kin ; 

But yet his face shone radiant as young Sin 

When to fresh youth it offers fair delight. 

As a winged prince of light-alves, pure and bright, 

He came Iduna's fruit of life to win, 

That through her shame the sooner might begin 

Dread ragnarok with all its ruin and blight ! 

Iduna knows a rune of three-fold grace 
With which she guards the treasure Loke would take ; 
And when she spoke it for her pure love's sake, 
The fell sprite shrieked and vanished. In the place 
Where he had kneeled to work her soul's disgrace, 
Hardby her feet writhed a foul, hissing snake ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 129 



THE BANSHEE. 

T HEARD the banshee call ! Her voice is mild 
As the low wash of waves on sunlit strands, 
Where blue seas break in music on white sands 
In lands where pain by sweet dreams is beguiled. 
As in my arms at dawn, I held a child, 
I heard the banshee's call. And still she stands 
There in my hall at dawn as when its hands 
( Its sweet, small hands ) the child stretched out and smiled. 

Albeit her face is wan, it has the grace 

Of moonlight falling pale on rapid streams 

And scintillating through their jewelled spray. 

So ever seems to me the banshee's face, 

As in my hall she stands at dawn of day, 

Calling me to wake from sleep and troubled dreams ! 



i 3 o STUDIES IN VERSE. 



EVE IN EXILE. 

O RAVE in distress and greater than the stain 

Of serpent sin upon her womanhood, 
Before lost Eden's gate our Mother stood 
And gazed into the future where all pain 
Of hers and all her sons shall be their gain. 
For spite of fate and all the adder brood 
Of night and terror, he who bears his rood, 
Shall win his heaven, nor shall the mark of Cain 
Doom him to that black pit where serpents hiss 
The primal curse ! No soul that strives shall fail 
Nor be betrayed to death by Judas kiss. 
Against the grave all souls of truth prevail 
And win to heavenly bliss through Calvary's bale. 
Know this ! There is no greater law than this ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



THE PERI. 

/ ~pHE Peri floated, a white cloud on high, 

O'er the crowded town at the close of day. 
Far down on the plain where great Bagdad lay, 
She gazed with a tear in her pitying eye ; 
Then straight she turned, by the spell of a sigh, 
To a gleaming mote in the sun's last ray, 
And fell in the room where a sick child lay, 
To give it a dream of the clear, blue sky ! 

When the Peri floats at the noontide hour 
Where Bagdad town spreads vast on the plain, 
She sees from on high the woe and the pain 
Of its weak souls, crushed by the pride and power 
Of those who have robbed them of freedom's dower, 
And she cries : " Alas ! are these lives in vain?" 



i 3 2 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



MODGUDA. 

\ A J HEN I rode to the Yellow bridge that lies 

Between Midgard and Helheim, vast and cold, 
Modguda stayed me. Yet I could behold 
Strange, ghostly sights that no man ere he dies, 
Beholds, except he see with Odin's eyes 
Or the skald's vision ! On that bridge of gold, 
I saw a mighty host, the young, the old, 
The fair-haired and the gray, the fools, the wise, 
The humble and the great of this strange earth ! 
A mighty spectre band, by night and day 
They crowd the entrance to the narrow way 
That leads men to the land of death in birth. 
But when I gazed, I thought on days of mirth 
In shining Gladheim and I could not stay ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 133 



MARY AND THE CHILD. 

F^ROM what mysterious, unseen, distant skies, 

Far, far beyond star-gazing Magi's ken, 
Came this child-soul to know the ways of men 
And bear their pains? Lo, as new-born he lies, 
Eternity looks out through his clear-seeing eyes, 
Fixed on his mother's fair, pale face, as when 
Ten thousand blessed spirits cried, Amen ! 
Hearing his will to live in human guise. 

This day, I saw a child lie as he lay. 
Tender and sweet it was and newly-born ; 
Unmeet for life's rough way seemed its small feet, 
And its fair brow unmeet to wear the thorn 
That truth wears now as on the primal day 
When Christ stood calm at haughty Herod's seat ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



AILEEN AROON. 

A Song. 

A H, how could you leave me, Aileen Aroon, 

Who gladly would die for your sweet love's sake ? 
Your beauty is bright as light on the lake 
When, rising at midnight, the fuil-orbed moon — 
(The deep-bosomed maid whose rays are in tune 
To the white, silent music shining stars make !) 
When the radiant moon through gray clouds doth break 
To gaze on your bright face, Aileen Aroon ! 

Come back, come back to your Carrol, Aileen ! 

Smile now as you smiled in glad days of yore 

In our play-time of life when Maytime was green 

And fragrant with flowers that bloomed round your door ! 

Lean on this fond heart as once you would lean, 

Aileen mavourneen, and leave me no more ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



SWANHILD, THE VALKYRIE. 

A T sunset, under dark and clouded skies, 
**• Unknown among the dead, Jarl Hakon lay. 
As one who breathes his life and hope away 
And curses Odin as he fails and dies, 
He lay alone, the death mist on his eyes. 
Then from high Asgard's bright, unending day. 
Swift as an arrow or the dawn-star's ray, 
Came Swanhild, bravest, truest and most wise 
Of battle-maids who are the hopes of men ! 
And bending by his side in that dark fen, 
That bloody marsh of death, she cleared the mist 
Of Helheim from his eyes so that he wist 
All Valhall's glories with his dying ken 
As his pale cheek the gracious Swanhild kissed. 



136 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



RANHILD. 

HP HE breakers roar hoarse as the rising gale 

Fans fiercely the funeral pyre's red flame, 
Where Thorgrim lies in the arms of his dame ! 
Dead lies the dread Jarl, but living and pale 
Sits his bride where the black ship's crackling sail 
Above her bent head, burns red as the name 
The Vikings left in the lands where they came 
With woe and slaughter, with ravin and bale ! 

Pale Ranhild sits steadfast with tearless eye 
As the storm drives the flaming ship to sea ! 
She hears the wild breakers roar loud on the lea ; 
She feels the fierce heat as the flames mount high, 
But holding her dead lord's head on her knee, 
She shows how a Berserker's wife can die ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



THE MAID OF THE VAN. 
A Ballad. 

INTENDED the sheep are pent in their fold ; 
^ Unfed are the kine, unreaped the ripe corn ! 
To the lake in the mountains Llewellen has gone 
Where the Maid of the Van with her girdle of gold, 
Rows her glittering boat when o'er mountain and wold, 
O'er lake and o'er fountain, the wonderful horn 
Of the shy queen of Elfland gives warning of dawn 
And the bright stars of morning grow pallid and cold f 

Though stars fade away, soon again they shall burn, 
But never again shall Llewellen return ! 
He has gone to the mountain far, dim and remote, 
Where the maid of the Van rows her crystalline boat ; 
Where in the charmed air elfin melodies float 
That none save her poets and lovers shall learn ! 



i 3 8 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



THE KORRIGAN. 

A Ballad. 

[ OUD wails his young bride for handsome Lord Nain ; 

*-* Cold, cold is the bride-bed in which he must sleep ; 

In the clay of the churchyard, narrow and deep, 

They have made him a chamber where sunshine and rain 

Shall fall on the roof all unheeded and vain ; 

Ne'er again shall he waken to laugh or to weep ; 

To ride in wild foray or love-tryst to keep, 

For the spell of the korr-maid has wrought him his bane ! 

She sat by the fountain and combed her bright hair ; 

Red gold was her comb, and the witch-spell she said 

Was as sweet as the tune of the melodies rare 

The moon-fairies sing in the uppermost air ! 

Ah, weep for the young bride whose brief joy has fled ! 

Ah, weep for Lord Nain in his deep narrow bed ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



UNDINE. 

T NDINE was but a rainbow, seen at eve 
^ Above the sea, mixed with the crystal dew 
That shines upon the violet's petals blue. 
From such brief, dream-wrought lives, the sunbeams weave 
Enchanted shapes most potent to deceive 
The haunted thoughts of poets. Yet she grew 
Through pain of love immortal, wise and true, 
Gaining a soul the while she learned to grieve ! 

Fair lives of joy shall pass and fade away ; 

They last but as sea-mist and blown, white foam ; 

But twice-born souls of truth shall live for aye 

And in far heavens find an eternal home, 

A fairer life, a rarer, purer day, 

Enduring as the sky's blue, star-set dome ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



THE MAID OF ELLE. 

H/E are but dreamers in a blind, gray night 

" * Where here and there a star gleams clear and shows 
The way to that fair land he finds who knows 
What children know, who through pure faith have sight 
For unseen worlds where, by love's grace and might, 
They who seek light will know what heaven still shows 
When faith glows bright as Northern midnight glows 
Where polar skies stream with auroral light. 

In that blest land, the best and bravest dwell ! 
There flows Urd's fount, and there the Maid of Elle 
Will kiss your cheek and lead you by the hand 
To glowing springs of light where the bright band 
Of souls who seek for truth shall understand 
The lore wise Odin learned at Mimir's well 1 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 141 



THEKLA AT ANTIOCH. 

A LL round the circus ran a low, soft sound 
* Of women's voices ! Many a fair, proud face 

Shone bright as dames of high, heroic race 
Stretched out turned thumbs the vast arena round, 
Giving the death sign. By their slaves unbound, 
The tigress slowly entered that dread place 
And fixed her glowing eyes on Thekla's face. 
Firm stood the virgin, waiting to be crowned, 
As they are crowned who for truth's sake, bear shame 
And dare to die, outcast, despised, alone ! 
The maiden stood with her pure body bared 
By shameless hands ! Creeping, the tigress came 
Nearer and yet more near ! Her fierce eyes glared, 
But Thekla stood and prayed before God's throne ! 



1 42 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



THE PERI BEFORE EBLIS. 

\ A /HERE Eblis sat upon his golden throne, 

A fair, pure Peri stood with fearless mien ; 
Her form was heavenly light. Her soul serene 
Was harmony divine, the sweet, clear tone 
Harp-players make who tune their harps alone, 
Far in deep woods when spring grows glad and green. 
The Peri's soul is peace. But I have seen 
The heart of Eblis. 'Tis a red-hot stone. 

Around his throne, earth's lords and masters stand 
And in each breast glows a slow-burning flame 
That through eternal ages shall not cease ! 
With one accordant voice, that haughty band 
Hail him their chief and laud his dreadful name. 
But Eblis scorns them since praise gives not peace ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 143 



PEGGY. 

r^ LOWERS have a heavenly meaning and a spell 

Of infinite, eternal tenderness ; 
In pity for blind, burning selfishness, 
For pain of hearts on fire with passions fell, 
God's kindness clothes witli flowers the plains of hell. 
High angels soothe with flowers our worst distress 
As I most surely know. Yet none less, 
Hood's Peggy scorns a rose and hates its smell. 

And I know why ; for lately I have seen 
Her wandering sick and ragged through the streets, 
Hawking the roses out sweet Margaret wears. 
Ah, blest is he who pities and who spares ! 
Who learns that love is best and kindness meet ! 
For he shall find what flowers and mercy mean. 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



XANTIPPE. 

"\7" ANTIPPE has been needlessly maligned 

By all historians of ancient date 
Because upon her husband's broad, bald pate 
She once threw slop ! But no impartial mind 
A cause for blame in that just act can find ; 
For these same great philosophers exasperate 
The saints themselves, gadding abroad to prate, 
Leaving their patient wives to stop behind. 

And then the impartial judgment sees, 

When from above her pail of slops she throws, 

Naught but her true desire to educate 

The philosophic mind into a higher state. 

Men are what women make them, and that shows 

Xantippe's scolding made great Socrates ! 



_ 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



TO JENNY. 

' ' Cum tu Lydia Tekphi — " 

JENNY, 'tis now just fifteen years ago 
Since you discarded me for Howard Pell. 
Have you forgotten — I remember well — 
The blackness of my deep and utter woe? 
How hard and vainly I strove not to show 
My burning hate for him when you would tell 
That in the last mazourka he danced well 
And that his black moustache became him so ! 

I'm still a bachelor and somewhat blue 
While you have six small children and the gout 
But I am told your Howard's good to you, 
And he's a first-rate fellow I've no doubt ! 
Ah, happy they who from the courts keep out, 
Bound by a love that is forever true ! 



i 4 6 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



TO MISS BETTY STARLING. 

" Est mihi nonum — " 

\ li Y dear Miss Betty : — Come on Wednesday night, 

And be sure not to fail. We've baked a cake 
And in their beds are growing for your sake 
Roses both pink and red. They will look bright, 
If you will place them in the laces white 
About your throat. I think Jack's heart will break, 
If you are late, or worse, if you should take 
A naughty notion this small note to slight. 

Be good to Jack ; for that young Woodhouse Strong 

Is a sad rake not fit to tie your shoe. 

'Twill be Jack's birthday. He's half-dead for you. 

Now don't forget. Please come ; and if you do, 

Be sure and bring your new guitar along 

And sing for us. For care is soothed by song ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 






TO CHLOE. 

\ li Y fawn-like Chloe, you do well to shun 
"*■ A That rascal, Flaccus, who's a devotee 
Of Venus and of Bacchus too. For he 
Would surely break your heart and think it fun ; 
With you he'd do as he's already done 
With Phyllis, Glycera and Lalage ; 
With Nerea, Chloris and Fhidyle ; 
And after them with many another one. 

Believe me, Chloe, you have cause to fear, 
As very well your anxious mother knows 
Whene'er she finds a smooth-tongued rascal near. 
He'd pull you as a small boy pulls a rose. 
Unless you use your thorns, you're gone, my dear, 
For when you're pulled, he'll never heed your woes ! 



148 STUDIES JN VERSE. 



LUCY NOE. 

QWEET Lucy Noe, learn to trust the sky ! 

Nor seek from gypsies what your fate must be ; 
Nor shuffle false, deceitful packs to see 
From jacks for low and puff-cheeked kings for high 
What next year brings ! Whether we live or die, 
Let us two sit unvext to-day and free 
From fear and care ! If you but dare trust me, 
You'll smile, my dear ! Tis better than to sigh ! 

We shall do well enough ! Nay, never fear ! 
Seize on the day and live your very best ! 
Heaven knows the future ; while our skies are clear, 
We'll hope our hopes and leave to heaven the rest ! 
So now, sweet Lucy, stand close by me here 
And let me pin this red rose on your breast ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 149 



SALLY. 

" Quis Multa Gracilis" 

\ \ THO'S dallying with fair Sally's cruel snare? 

" * What perfumed youth woos her with many a vow 
There in the blooming, rose-grown arbor now? 
For whom with care she parts her golden hair 
In artful artlessness ! Let him beware 
Whome'er she greets with gracious smile and bow, 
For if her wiles to win him he'll allow, 
She'll break his heart and bring him to despair ! 

Much will he suffer as I suffered once 
Before I learned that smiling seas grow rough. 
You please me, charming Sally, well enough ; 
I still can love a flirt, but I'm no dunce, 
And rascal Cupid's sharpest arrow blunts 
Against my heart as I grow old and tough ! 



i 5 o STUDIES IN VERSE. 



TO BELLA. 

" Nox erat etcaelo fulgehat luna sereno — " 

v 1 'WAS night ! In the clear sky the bright moon shone 

And from on high the listening stars could hear ! 
You swore that I should be forever dear 
And that you'd love me truly and alone 
While glistening Dtan keeps her crystal throne ; 
While twinkling stars wink dim above and peer 
Out from behind their clouds fleece-lined, in fear 
Lest what they think of lover's vows be known. 

O Bella, dear, I grieve to hear you say, 

After all that, so frigidly that I 

Am but a brother to you now. To-day, 

You walked with Dick and passed me coldly by ; 

Though he struts now, I don't expect to die 

Until this self-same trick on him you play ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 151 



LYDDY. 

\ A Y dearest Lyddy, come sit by me here, 

For there is a secret I fain would know : — 
Why does young Payne Farrington love you so 
That tennis and football he doesn't go near ? 
The head of his cane he sucks till I fear 
His brain will be turned ere his ideas flow 
And he learns some sensible way to show 
What he burns to tell you, Lyddy, my dear ! 

If he knew, my Lyddy, the end of that — 

Had he nursed six children through colds and croup ; 

With the whooping cough had he heard them whoop ; 

Had he the knowledge that's under my hat, 

Would he sit around and pule and droop, 

And be such a miserable, love-sick flat ? 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



EDITH. 

" Passer deliciae meae puellae — " 

\ A 70ULD I could envy Edith's ugly pug, 

That curled-tail monster whose cold, clammy nose 
The dear girl kisses while her plump cheek glows, 
Redder than bright Jack roses ere the slug 
Has touched 'em ! How her virgin charms would tug 
At my old heart-strings if she did not pose, 
Holding that pampered, round-paunched rascal, Bose, 
In her fair arms to kiss his snub-nosed mug ! 

His well-soaped hide is wrinkled up with fat ; 
He's haughty as a bloated millionaire, 
Because he knows no human pup would dare 
Attempt to put a paw where his are at. 
Dear Edith trains him carefully for that ; 
And if she'll wash her mouth, I'll kiss her there ! 



Li 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



ON THE DEATH OF EDITH'S PUG. 

" Lugete, Veneres Cupidinesque — "' 

O EJOICE, ye Cupids, Edith's pug is dead ! 

Never again, shall her vermilion kiss 
Waste on his nose what had been perfect bli»s 
If rightly placed. But Edith's eyes are red ; 
So let a billion salty tears be shed 
In grief for Bose ! How sadly we shall miss 
Those uppish airs he gave himself, I wiss, 
Waddling, short-legged, behind her as she led 
Him by a ribbon round his fat-creased neck ! 
But cease, dear Edith, cease at length to weep ! 
Life is too short to waste it in such sighs ! 
The tears you've shed would make at least a peck 
So cheer up now and dry your swollen eyes 
Though Bose is wrapped in an eternal sleep ! 



154 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



BONNYBFLLE. 

/°OME kiss me, my Bonnybelle, red-cheeked lass, 
^-^ For this day I am come to forty year ! 
You look as your mother once looked, my dear, 
Some twenty years syne when I was an ass, 
And Thackeray says — but we'll let that pass ! 
For though grizzling of hair the brain doth clear, 
Mine's black must grow grizlier yet, my dear, 
Ere I make light of the worth of a lass ! 

Your cheeks are red, but no redder I ween, 

Nor your eyes more sparkling than hers were then 

As a coy, smiling lass just turned seventeen ; 

(And a sweeter yet I never have seen !) 

Ah, a fig for wisdom and all wise men, 

If heaven would but make me a boy again ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



MARQUISE. 

\/*0U scarcely have at six years old, Marquise, 

The same fine, high-bred air you had at three. 
You're losing tone in our society, 
As I can not deny. But tell me, please, 
For what small sin they banished you to these 
Low-lying lands upon Time's farthest lea 
And on sin's windward side, where I can see 
You're lowering to our level by degrees. 

Alas, you did a human thing to-day, 
An ill-bred thing your father might have done, 
Who knows all naughtiness beneath the sun. 
Come tell me, Marchioness, and then go play , 
And if the star that lost you, has another ray 
Clear as your soul, may it soon send us one ! 



i 5 6 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



MILDRED. 

H ILDRED, the little short-tailed, wise, shy wren, 
A A There on the rose-bush, has three eggs of blue, 
One for each year the angels have brought you 
Since that remembered April morning when 
You shed your wings and came to live with men. 
You did not look as if you ever flew, 
But none the less your sage, old father knew 
The whole deep truth about you even then ! 

Ten thousand years ago, you had a nest — 

(Ten hundred thousand years are but a day 

Up in far skies where small, bright angels play — ) 

Ten thousand years ago, you had a nest, 

Where every day, a pale-blue egg you'd lay 

Among pink rose-buds. Pink buds you liked the best. 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 157 



LITTLE BO PEEP. 

/""\UR little Bo Peep ere she went away 
^^ To seek her lost sheep in a fairer land, 
Loved spring and rare sunshine and lilies grand — 
The queenly lilies that reign for a day ! 
She loved the sweet singing of birds in May 
When flowers are springing through all the land 
And that is why in her tight-closed hand, 
She held a white rose as asleep she lay ! 

Our little Bo Peep ere she went to sleep, 

Had deep, smiling dimples and wide brown eyes ; 

She knew it best to be merry and wise, 

A waste of sweet spring-time to sigh and weep. 

Now close at her head as alone she lies, 

Is a white, stone lamb from her flock of sheep ! 



i 5 8 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



TO MY MOTHER. 

H OTHER, time's snow has fallen upon your hair 
**• A These many years since you with yearning gaze 
Watched one well-loved go unreturning ways, 
And gave him tears. I know not if there are 
Women of wit more burning, forms more fair, 
For earth has not another one whose praise 
Your son would sing throughout all years and days, 
If idle rhymes could but repay your care ! 

Your prayer for me when Sabbath evening chimes 
Sound sweet upon the air of placid Junes, 
Has made my soul more meet for all fair tunes 
Which fill with melody the unseen climes 
Where deathless singers with their wondrous runes 
Make music with a magic spell for after times. 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



IN MARY'S GARDEN. 

T N Mary's garden, fair maids stand a-row 

Beside a violet bed fringed with heartsease ! 
You will not find six sweeter maids than these ; 
(I ask your pardon ! What I say, I know !) 
For not one is contrary and they grow 
So good and kind that every one who sees 
Has often said that they, by slow degrees, 
Grow more like flowers. And that, I think, is so ! 

Have you not seen these six fair maids of ours ? 

One is fourteen and growing very tall ; 

One is just middle-size and one is small ; 

And when they're good and kind, they seem like flowers. 

Yes, in my mind, I deem these maids of ours 

The sweetest, best and brightest of them all ! 



160 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



TO LOULA. 

"HE good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever !" 

So a dear friend of ours advises you ; 
But you may be both good and clever too ! 
Let that be always your assured endeavor ; 
Learn from your garden's flowers and you will never 
Forget what lilies teach when wet with dew : — 
That purest souls are fairest and most true 
And fragrant, unstained thoughts are wise forever ! 

The stars are high but let your thoughts reach higher 

Until it finds the all-pervading mind, 

And if your soul be dumb, in self confined, 

Pray that the seraphim may touch with fire 

Your lips, that you may voice each pure desire 

And heaven's true thought in your own thoughts may find ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



TO A SEMPSTRESS. 

V/"OU who once read with me the Mantuan's page ; 
You who might boast the high Heraklid blood, 
Have spent the best days of your womanhood, 
The fairest years of all your youthful age 
In toil so hard for such a scanty wage 
That I can see your work stained as if blood 
You gave in sacrifice to motherhood 
And the pure love that doth your thoughts engage ! 

A noble woman is God's highest work, 

And though your name of light I do not call, 

I shut my love for it down deep within 

A soul where still this pride and hope will lurk, 

That you who are the truest of them all 

May feel no shame to hear me claim you kin ! 



ifa STUDIES IN VERSE. 



MOTHER GOOSE. 

r~^ REAT Mother Goose, who art the very chief 
^-^ Of sweet New England singers, hail, all hail ! 
The tooth of carking time shall not prevail 
Against thee ! Though we lose belief 
In bards more sage and learn with deepest grief 
That they're no Homers, ne'er shall cease or fail 
Thy praises ; ne'er thy burning glories pale ! 
Thou mighty mistress of the lyre, thou chief 
Of Runic song, teach us thy magic art, 
That we may surely reach the human heart 
With deathless strains which still from age to age, 
The pains of earth's long childhood shall assuage. 
For they who scorn thy rhymes, in vain do wage 
Their puny war against Time's conquering dart ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 163 



THE WOMAN IN THE BASKET. 

f~\ SEE the wise woman, how high she flies, 
^^ Ninety and nine times as high as the moon ! 
Will she descend and end her work full soon? 
Or will she stay till from the upper skies, 
Those cobwebs gray which baffle prying eyes, 
She clears away ? Will she bring down the tune 
The spheres sing ? Will she learn the rune 
The man in the full moon tells to the wise? 

Up in her basket this good woman went 
To straighten out the great bear's crooked tail ! 
She'll not descend until her breath is spent ! 
So do not ask it ! But she's growing pale ; 
And if her high, enthusiastic zeal should fail, 
Her labor for reform would all be shent ! 



1 64 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



MRS. J. SPRATT. 

** I V HIS world a better woman does not hold 

*■ Than Mrs. Spratt, wife of dyspeptic Jack — 
(Who is, however, not quite half so black 
As he's been painted !) She's a heart of gold ! 
And — since I know it, though I've not been told — 
I here make bold to say behind her back, 
That all upon this earth she still doth lack 
Of being truly sainted is a tighter hold 
Upon her temper on house-cleaning days ! 
So raise your voice, my muse, and sing her praise ! 
O omniscient goddess, you have seen 
How patiently she bears her husband's mean, 
Dyspeptic groans and pneumogastric ways ; 
And well you know she really likes the lean ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 165 



JILL. 

\ \ J HEN stumbling Jack, his empty pail to fill, 

* ^ Climbs life's steep hill in search of Mimir's water, 
Pray tell me why must Embla's luckless daughter, 
The willful, wayward, careless smiling Jill, 
When Jack falls down and all his pains doth spill, 
Come falling, bawling, stumbling, sprawling 'ater ? 
I asked a Norn. So strongly I besought her, 
She told the whole. Now listen if you will ! 

Jill loves her Jack. When he his crown doth crack, 

She cannot bear a prudent, uncracked crown ; 

So when life's hill, head-first, he tumbles down, 

She needs must tumble too, hard at his back, 

As you might do who live in this same town, 

If you loved shambling, stumbling, crackbrained Jack. 



166 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



YVETTE, THE BALLET DANCER. 

f_T AVE you no soul at all, fair, lithe Yvette, 

Are you then, but a shameless, dancing sprite, 
One of those nixies who each Friday night, 
Dance with small imps until the moon has set — 
With small, singed imps, smoke-stained and black as jet ? 
Your limbs, swift-glancing and your feet so light 
Bewilder foolish eyes and charm our sight 
Until the harm and shame we quite forget ! 

Far down in Sheol, wicked nixies dance 

Before gray, bald-crowned sinners and smooth boys, — 

Smooth, beardless boys who dream that Sheol's joys 

Shall be eternal ! How their lithe limbs glance 

In the red, gleaming fire-light as they dance, 

Mad with delight that ruins and destroys ! 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 167 



JEZEBEL. 

A A 7ITH snowy arms and swelling bosom bare, 

* * Queen Jezebel in her high hall of state, 
Feasted the brave, the noble and the great ! 
Bright gleamed her jewelled frontlet, and most fair 
Shone on her white, curved' throat a ruby rare, 
Red as shed blood and glowing as the hate 
Of famished slaves who stand without her gate, 
Clenching their futile hands in vain despair ! 

Her voice is music, low and soft and sweet 
As a clear viol's last sweet, echoing tone ; 
But harsh and full of discord is the moan 
Of piteous children, starving in the street. 
Close then her gates, and let no sound unmeet 
Mar the blent harmonies about her throne ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



MAG. 

QHE sits half-bent, a foul and sin-wrecked hag, 

^ An outcast daughter of the race of Heth ! 

In the last days of life ill-spent, her breath 

Comes in sharp gasps. Her shoulders sag ; 

Her chapless jaws with drooling curses wag. 

" Lo, is not this (one says and shuddereth) 

Incarnate Sin in love with hell and death ?" 

But the small street imps call her " Work-House Mag !" 

But thou that judgest, whosoe'er thou art, 
Hast thou no kinship with such souls as hers 
Who do not choose their roles or know the part 
The prompter gives them when the curtain stirs 
And rises on a stage where still recurs 
This tragedy earth's sad Christ knows by heart ? 



THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN. 



GRETCHEN AND THE DAISY. 

' 1 *EN leaves of white around a heart of gold ! 

One leaf for love ; the next for bitter grief 
One leaf for falsehood ; one for fond belief ! 
By ten such leaves is Gretchen's fortune told ! 
So much of life can one small flower unfold 
To her who plucks it, leaf by fatal leaf, 
(The first for joy, the last for bitter grief) 
Till naught remaineth but the heart of gold ! 

Yea, she loved much and much is she forgiven ! 
Though sin brings death, love draws us ever on ; 
And ever still our rough ways lead above, 
Until at last for love's sake, sin is shriven. 
So shall we learn when other life is gone, 
There is in heaven no other life but love ! 



STUDIES IN VERSE. 



MARIA BEATIFICATA. 

' I k HAT same sad Mary who on Calvary, 

Wept with her loving heart wrung by despair, 
Sits now, chief of the blessed souls who share 
The secret knowledge of Gethsemane ; 
The meaning of Golgotha's mystery ; 
For Christ has written it in letters fair 
Upon the golden Book of Life. And there 
The highest angels of eternity 
Kneel and cry out " Hosannah !" to His name ; 
" Hosannah !" cry the blessed cherubim ; 
" Hosannah !" cry the mighty seraphim, 
Crowned with their frontlets of fair, shining flame ; 
" Hosannah !" all heaven's hosts cry out to Him ; 
" Blessed, thrice blessed be His glorious name !" 



THE HORATIAN ODE AND THE 
TUSCAN SONNET. 



The Horatian Ode and the 
Tuscan Sonnet. 



THE earlier English sonnets were imitated from the 
mediaeval Tuscan, but they do not adequately repre- 
sent the principle of musical vowel succession from which 
the Tuscan sonnet derives its greatest charm. 

The English sonnet-writers devoted their attention to 
metre, governed with rigid formality by final (end) rhymes 
recurring at rigidly formal intervals. 

In the sonnet of Petrarch as in the best classical verse, 
metre is subordinated to the musical laws which determine 
melody. 

It is hard to decide to what extent Petrarch consciously 
practiced these laws. It is clear that he was not master of 
the highly artistic system of line and staff rhyme which 
characterizes the lyrics of Horace, but it is almost equally 
certain that he and the other great Italian masters of that 
period had partly recovered the accent of the classical Latin, 
and had thus become conscious of the melody of the verse 
of the Augustan epoch. 



i 7 6 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



All who practice music or habitually read verse aloud 
know that the ear will apprehend the system governing a 
melody, instrumental or vocal, long before the mind is able 
to analyze it. This is illustrated in the case of Father Prout 
whose mastery of the languages of the Latin peoples, ancient 
and modern, so educated his ear that in translating the 
Horatian ode " Lydia, die per omnes," he divided the 
Latin throughout on the pauses which develop the internal 
rhyme governing the verse. He was almost equally suc- 
cessful in scanning the melody of the ode to Leuconoe, but 
he never ventured to trust his ear in a generalization which 
might have made him master of the secret of the melody of 
Greece and Rome. 

Prout's translations of Horace are founded on his ear for 
the melody of the verse as those of Bulwer-Lytton are on a 
theory of the metre. Any one who will compare Prout's 
translation of the ode to Lydia with that of Lord Lytton, 
will see at once how it is possible for the ear to separate 
two systems which in the verse of Horace, harmonize 
perfectly. The Horatian verse is governed chiefly by 
*' homceoteleuton" as defined by Aristotle in his work on 
rhetoric ; and approximately in the new Century dictionary. 
The term is more comprehensive than the English word 
rhyme, but the rhyme of the Horatian verse when it occurs 



RHYME AND MELODY. 



at the end of the staves of melody is exactly similar to the 
rhyme governing the verse of the best English writers. 

Horatian verse, however, was written with a careful 
regard to succession of vowel tones not only at the ends of 
the staves of the verse but in each separate verse itself. 

Horatian line rhyme follows closely the principles on 
which the air is composed in setting a song to the harp. 
This "Tonkunst" characterizes the best odes of Horace 
as it does the verse of Homer and the Greek poets. The 
single perfect example the writer cqn recall in English verse 
is the line of Coleridge : 

" In Xanadu did Kubla Khan — " 

"Xan" and "Khan;" "du" and "Ku;" "a" and 
"bla" fill the definition of perfect line rhymes, while the 
" i's" in "in" and in " did" are strongly assonant. 

In the Horatian ode, as in Homer,* the metre of the verse 



* In his essay on the Homeric poems, Plutarch defines two varie- 
ties of stave rhymes, the homoeoteleuton and its variant, the homoe- 
optoton, the latter word denoting the artistic adaptation of case 
endings, and the other ordinary rhymes and assonances of Greek 
syntax. The use of these varieties of rhyme under the governing 
influence of parison or isokolon is mainly the secret of melody in 
classical verse. It is of the greatest importance to remember that 
parison and isokolon operate generally from the beginning of verses, 
and are not necessarily checked by their endings. (Compare 
Quintilian B IX, ch. Ill, 75 to 85.) 



i 7 8 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



regulates melody and prevents jingling. In a language like 
classical Latin where the grave accent tends always to final 
syllables with a stronger stress even than in modern French ; 
or like Greek in which (except a few particles) every syllable 
not otherwise accented has the grave accent, jingling would 
be frequent in verse unless melody was regulated by metre 
depending not only on accent but on stressing the vowels to 
give them musical time. These agencies check what might 
otherwise be the excessive vowel assonance of the verse and 
give it a harmony which has never been equalled perhaps, 
since in the classical languages the grave accent on final 
syllables ceased to be strong enough to hold the acute in 
musical balance. 

The end rhymes of modern verse serve a double purpose. 
They show the measure of the verse, and bind together the 
separate verses of which the poem is composed. The stave 
rhymes with which the line rhymes of Horatian verse are 
reinforced, also serve to bind the verses together in systems 
or stanzas, and to define the staves of which each verse and 
stanza is composed. But they do not otherwise limit the 
verse. They may be coincident with line rhymes. They 
may occur at the end of verses as in English. They may 
and they often do, define the metre of entire verses as is so 
frequently the case in the dialogue of Aeschylus. But they 



RHYME AND MELODY. 179 



do not severely limit the verse. Occurring at musical rather 
than mathematical intervals, they give the Horatian ode a 
freedom which modern lyrical verse has lost. An examin- 
ation of the melody of the following lines written in a com- 
mon English metre, will suggest some of the uses of rhyme 
in classical " blank verse." 

" The dawn's fleet ray, a flower in the grass, 
Dew drops on the lawn, sweet scents in May ; 
The bird's soft song at morning heard — 
These shall not pass though "kingdom's fall ; 
Though all else change these shall not pass ! " 

Much of the art of Horatian verse consists of skilfully 
disguised line rhymes which are often used to rest the voice 
after a series of stave rhymes, as in the third verse above 
where the melodious antithesis between "bird" and "heard" 
defines the verse of which it is a part and checks the voice 
for an interval of melody longer than that generally punctu- 
ated by the period. Such staff rhymes as "ray" and 
" May;" "grass" and "pass," "fall" and "all," are also 
intended to punctuate the verse, mark its time and develop 
those words or syllables which are thought worthy of special 
emphasis. The Horatian stave rhyme serves all these 
purposes and many others, for it is nearly always at the end 



i So STUDIES IN VERSE. 



of a sense-clause as well as of a bar of melody, and the 
coincidence between these is a powerful aid not only to 
remembering the verse but to appreciating its subtleties of 
meaning. 

The Horatian ode to "Pyrrha" is a very melodious 
example of " homceoteleuton " in its form of line and stave 
rhymes as will be seen from a close examination of the 
opening lines : 

" Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa 

Perfusus liquidis urget odoribus 

Grato, Pyrrha, sub antro ? 

Cui flavam religas comam 

Simplex munditiis !" *** 

The final syllables of " gracilis " " liquidis" and " mun- 
ditiis " are examples of the stave rhyme, recurring at definite 
musical intervals to bind the separate verses together. The 
first verse gives a beautiful example of line rhymes in 
"quis" and "gracilis" "multa" and "rosa" the final 
syllables of which were stressed as in French except that 
the pronunciation of the consonant with the subsequent 
vowel as in Italian makes the grave stress stronger than on 
final syllables in French prose. In the second verse ' ' per- 
fusus " and "odoribus" have terminations which give 



RHYME AND MELODY. 



perfect line rhymes while the " u's " and " i's" in the verse 
afford musical assonances. The governing rhymes of the 
preceding ode, " To Sestius," are even more melodious. 

" Solvitur acris hyems grata vice veris et favoni, 
Trahuntque siccas machinae carinas ; 
Ac neque jam stabulis gaudet pecus aut arator igni ; 
Nee prata canis albicant pruinis." 

Although the almost perfect music of this verse is lost 
when it is read with the accent and vowel values of the 
Teutonic tongues, much of it remains when either the 
French or Italian accentuation is used. But unfortunately 
the French vowels represent a different musical key, while 
in Italian though the key is the same or almost the same, 
the shifting of accent away from final syllables disguises 
the true nature of the verse. 

Almost obscured in modern verse, the classical principle 
of melody survives to a much greater extent in musical 
composition. In the best German and Scotch instrumental 
melodies, it is easy to find entire systems, governed by the 
same laws which govern the lyrics of Homer and Horace 
and so closely analagous to them as to be scientifically 
correspondent. It is worthy of special note that this is 
most apt to be true of those airs which have taken the 
greatest hold on the memory of the people. 



i3 2 STUDIES IN VERSE, 



A fact which might otherwise seem incredible admits of 
very simple explanation. The most artistic classical writers 
including those of the Augustan age were governed largely 
by the system of melody which governs the Homeric verse 
— which the Homeric verse develops as a race-inheritance, 
originating in an antiquity as remote as the origin of 
language. The Homeric verse is truly lyrical. In its vowel 
succession and governing rhymes, it corresponds with the 
music of the lyre to which it was intoned. 

It is obviously difficult for any one who has a good voice 
and an accurate ear for musical tone and time, to depart far 
from the tone and time of the musical instrument to which 
he sings or recites in extemporaneous composition. The 
voice and the instrument affect each other mutually in the 
rhapsody or extemporaneous lyric — a fact which goes far to 
account for the superior melody of the Homeric rhapsodies 
and of all other genuine improvisations to music. 

The laws governing the educated human ear are such 
that it is certain as anything can be scientifically, that the 
Homeric verse, in its tone and time is the analogue of the 
Greek music of its day. The question of pitch and its con- 
nection with accent in classical verse need not be considered 
here, though the review of what some classical writers have 
said on the subject, might be read with advantage as 
Rousseau has given it in his musical dictionary. 



RHYME AND MELODY. i3 3 



A comparatively close idea of the melody of Homeric 
verse may be gained by any musician who will analyze the 
melody of Schubert's "Hark, Hark, the Lark!" as it 
would be played on a harp of a single octave, with the 
pauses in the music governed by those of the verse to 
which it is set, thus : 

EFBBBD CC 

Hark, hark the lark at heaven's gate sings 

G GG Ga G C 
And Phoebus gins to rise ' 

EFBBBCE G 
His steeds to water at those springs 

G GG GA G E 
On chaliced flowers that lies. 

The principles of time, tone, and pitch, governing the 
execution of this melody on any instrument or by the voice, 
are dominated by a higher principle which governed in the 
mind of the composer — that of melodious antithesis, under 
which like sounds are set against each other in musical 
equipoise. It was for this purpose that the so-called 
" homceoteleuton " was chiefly used in classical composi- 
tion as end rhymes are used in English verse. Only a great 
poet, however, and one thoroughly master of the underlying 



i8 4 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



simplicities of vowel harmony could venture such a vowel 
succession as that of the repeated "G" notes character- 
izing the melody of the second and fourth antithetical 
periods in this quatrain. Homer does it frequently in 
verse that expresses elevated feeling, and Horace imitates 
him in it though with caution, and of course not with the 
same success in a language which lacked the grave musical 
qualities of the Greek. 

The fundamental law of melodious antithesis is that like 
sounds with a difference must recur at musical intervals. 
Thus in Schubert's air above "C-C" at the end of the 
first antithetical period, and " G-C " at the end of the 
second are like sounds differentiated — to make melody, in 
the first place, and in the second to measure the music so 
that the ear can grasp its rhythm. Again, the C at the end 
of the second antithetical period blends with the E at the 
beginning of the next to form a melodious correspondence 
with the " G-E " at the end of the fourth. Such corres- 
pondences as this are classed by Aristotle under the general 
heading of " paromceosis " a word which may mean alliter- 
ation, assonance, consonance and rhyme. As all asso- 
nances, consonances and alliterations are rhymes when they 
are perfect, it may be said for the sake of illustrating the 
analogy between vocal and instrumental melody that the 



RHYME AND MELODY. 185 



recurrence of like sounds with a difference in the air from 
Schubert constitutes rhyme, and that in instrumental melody 
rhymes serve the same purpose they do in vocal. 

This purpose is recognized by Aristotle who writes in 
concluding the ninth chapter of his third book on rhetoric, 
that " it is possible for the same example (in Greek prose) 
to be both an antithesis equipoised and having rhyme." 
(Bohn translation of 1890, page 234.) 

This use of rhyme in the prose writing of the Greeks and 
Romans was carried to what some condemned as an excess. 
Quintillian* does not so condemn it, but Aulus Gellius 
(XVII — 8) has preserved a fragment from the fifth satire of 
Lucilius in which it is severely attacked. N o doubt the ear 
of the poet objected to a recurrence of rhymes which so 
easily becomes a jingle where it is not governed by a correct 
sense of melody. 

Unless verse written under classical laws is thus governed, 
it becomes discordant and disagreeable. The disuse of the 
lyre in composition and recitation left the ear without 
proper means of education, and the attempt to compose 
either prose or verse under the laws illustrated in the odes 



* Confer Quintillian IX Book, chapter III, 75 to 87. English 
translations of the technical terms of classical literary art are fre- 
quently inadequate and misleading. 



i86 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



of Horace as they are to some extent in the prose of Cicero, 
necessarily resulted in artificiality and discord. 

The governing influence of rhyme in determining melody 
in what may be called the Augustan age of Norse poetry, is 
noticed by Messrs. Vigfusson and Powell in their Corpus 
Poeticum P>oreale, from which this may be quoted : 

11 There are two kinds of rhyme or sound-echo used in 
the later Northern metres — full rhyme which may be single 
as ' take ' and ' bake ' or double as ' taking ' and ' baking ; ' 
consonant rhyme or consonance as 'take' and 'cook.' 

Rhymes may be end rhymes coming at the end of each 
half line or line of a set ; or they may be line rhymes^ 
coming both within one-half line. Line rhymes may come 
within any syllable of a word." 

This is strongly suggestive of the system governing 
classical verse as it is illustrated in Homer and Horace, 
whose rhymes, however, are nearly always perfect as in the 
very best modern poetry. Their recurrence as stave rhymes 
in consonance with the line rhymes of single verses not 
only marks the rhythmical bars of the verse, but defines its 
sense-clauses in a way which often elucidates passages not 
readily intelligible otherwise. The fact that the pauses in 
Latin and Greek are so different from those of any modern 
positional language is one of the factors which combine 



RHYME AND MELODY. 187 



to make it difficult to recognize the melody of classical 
verse. The first step towards regaining it for educational 
purposes must be the repunctuation of classical texts in 
harmony with those conversational pauses by which the 
syntactical agreements of the language, depending on its 
agreements of termination, were developed so that the ear 
could readily grasp them — as of course it could not have 
done otherwise. Even if we could speak Greek or Latin 
now with the accent and alphabetical values of the first 
century before Christ, an Athenian or Roman of that period 
would probably have great difficulty in understanding us 
because the pauses used in modern positional languages tend 
to obscure completely the relations and agreements of the 
words in a Greek or Latin sentence. 

Of course these relations were soon obscured by the 
shifting of accent. When the grave accent lost its governing 
value, the composition of verse under classical laws became 
merely a matter of pedantry. The staff rhyme of classical 
verse must have assimilated with the rhymes of religious 
and popular ' ' proses " to make the system which comes 
down to us in the earlier proses of the Christian church — 
a system which is well illustrated in the " Stabat Mater" 
and "Dies Irae." Such proses, it may be asserted with 
positiveness, constituted the beginning of the modern sys- 
tem of verse as it appears in the earlier Tuscan sonnets 



188 STUDIES IN VERSE. 



and ballatas, in the verse of the Northern minnesingers 
and troubadors, and more rudely in the popular heroic 
ballads of England and Scotland. 

This, however, was not the earliest form of the proses 
or chants used in the Christian church. In their earlier 
form, the rhymes and assonances which govern them and 
determine their melody are free and much more melodious 
than it is possible for rhymes and assonances to be when 
mathematically fixed at rigid intervals apart. Perhaps one 
of the most beautiful proses in existence, if indeed it is 
not the most perfect example of vowel harmony in religious 
poetry is the chant in the book of Revelations beginning 
" And I saw a new heaven and a new earth." Although it 
might have been pronounced rude by a rhetorician of that 
day accustomed to the niceties of melodious antithesis in 
the artificial style of the later oratorical writers, it shows 
that the writer was familiar with the leading rules of com- 
positions commonly taught in the schools by students of 
Homer, and that he had an ear for the melody of language 
hardly equalled by that of Homer himself. The book of 
Revelations is characterized by the frequent recurrence of 
such rhapsodies, and they are invaluable as illustrations 
of the beginnings of modern religious melody. 

In the time of Petrarch, the criticism which has its highest 
reach in the counting of syllables had not yet begun to 



RHYME AND MELODY. 189 



dominate the composition of verse. With Petrarch as with 
Horace and Homer, melody was the supreme force. His 
verse was confined by end rhymes, it is true, but he did 
not allow these to master him. He had no hesitation in 
using fifteen or more syllables in a sonnet line, and as many 
accents as he saw fit. His line rhymes which determine 
the measure of his melody, are highly musical but not sys- 
tematic as are those of the best classical odes. His staff 
rhymes which occur frequently have the appearance of 
being the result of unconscious musical suggestion while it 
is only possible for ignorance of the nature of classical 
verse to question the art with which its rhyming syllables 
are arranged. This art, developed by the very nature of 
the languages of which it is a part, appears in Petrarch in 
his mastery of the principles of harmonious vowel succession. 
His verse resembles that of Horace in that the vowels are 
played upon as if they were the strings of the harp or the 
keys of a piano. This is an art which is still possible for 
English verse. It may finally become possible also for 
English versifiers to do as Petrarch and Horace have done 
in subjecting rhythm to the laws of melody. If an anapestic 
stave suits Petrarch better than an iambic, he uses it with 
the same freedom he shows in extending or shortening his 
verses to suit the demands of his melody. His ear taught 
him that the reading of verse by a fixed scheme of rhythm, 



iqo STUDIES IN VERSE. 



depending on the recurrence of sounds of the same length 
at the same or nearly the same intervals throughout lyrics 
or longer poems would result in such droning as character- 
izes the hexameters of that great scholar and critic Voss, 
whose German ' ' hexameter " version of the Homeric poems 
has influenced for the worse not only American prosodists 
but even American writers of verse. It is doubtful if there 
is in Homer a single period of five lines which can be read 
successfully by the hexameter of Voss, even when the effect 
of the grave accent in Greek is lost sight of * It may be 
asserted with confidence that there are no two periods of ten 
lines each in Homer in which the pauses governing the 
verse repeat each other ; and it is equally safe to say that 
the pauses which govern Horatian verse do not permit it 
to be read by any metrical scheme under which the attempt 
is made to reduce every verse and stanza to the fixed rule 
of every other verse and stanza in the same ode. No verse 
js more artistic than that of Horace, and while it is not as 
free as that of Homer, it is freer than that of Burns. Its 
metre is not the shackle of the galley-slave but the rudder 
of the galley, cutting the waters of the Aegean when 
" sharp winter melts in change of spring and west winds, 
blowing, swell whitening sails upon blue, sunlit seas." 

* In scholia B on Hephaiston of Alexandria, the seven varieties of 
heroic verse used in the Homeric poems are defined and illustrated. 
Both the scholiae and the text of Hephaiston deserve careful study. 



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